Distant War
by KaraStorm
Summary: Fourth story in the Colony War Series. Kirk is going off on assignment to the biggest trouble spot in the Federation and Spock must navigate Starfleet Academy and his high priest training on his own. Lightly AU universe. Spock is 19-20 years old. Kirk is 25.
1. Impatient

Chapter 1 - Impatient

Kirk turned the plain gray, vacuum-sealed case over once before pressing and sliding the release to pop it open. Inside was an old uniform, a comb and other bathroom items.

"Stuff from the Ranger."

Kirk set the shipping case aside to leave in the dormitory lobby. He shook out the uniform. It smelled vaguely musty and machine-like. "Hm."

Spock lounged in the window with his feet up, his usual spot. Kirk had yet to point out that this penchant reminded Kirk of a house cat.

"Something wrong?" Spock asked.

"Oh. Just thinking how quickly things can change. What time is it? You need to report to the Apollo soon, don't you?"

Spock's brows lowered. "I am keeping track of the time."

Kirk put his new old things away. "Yeah. Of course. Sorry." Kirk sat back against the desk, drummed his fingers. "You likely don't know what time you'll be finished."

"No."

"Come back whatever the time. We haven't made love yet today."

"Are we on a schedule?"

"Yes. We are."

Spock bent his head over his work again. "I see."

* * *

The USS Apollo hung in her evenly lit bay like an art piece in an earth gallery. Her skin had been removed across the back of the primary hull to facilitate installation of the new impulse engines. It had the same unnatural appearance as the simulated cutaways from Spock's class assignments.

Spock followed a group of four maintenance crew across the wide gangway that attached to the side of the secondary hull. The two hulls were rounded, but with different diameters of rounding. To Spock, who thought ships should give no nod to appearance, it appeared to be a worse than nothing attempt at aesthetics.

Spock showed his pass again, this time to security at the ship side of the gangway. A familiar voice said, "Hey, Cadet."

Crewmember Hully strode up, came to a stop. Her dusty colored hair was cropped short now, buzzed up the back and sides, square like her small jaw. The style accentuated her narrow, and frail seeming body.

"I'm to show you around. Come on."

Spock followed. They made a few turns to get to the primary fore and aft passageway.

"This all right?" Hully asked.

"I'm not certain to what you are referring."

She grinned. "Me taking you around. If I can keep you from annoying Chief, I can hopefully keep helping you with your project which sounds far more interesting than scrubbing and oiling components, which would be my job if this doesn't work out."

They stopped before the storage bays outside engineering. "I'm going to see if there are things in here tagged for your project. The fewer things we have to ask Chief about, the better off we are." She queried the computer and found two baskets full of sensors. "These are yours. Strain gauges?"

"They are that as well as position sensors accurate to a fraction of a proton's diameter."

"You're doing something for the engine install?"

"This ship is being retrofit with the latest version of an older engine design that Starfleet intends to standardize on. A design that is more reliable and powerful, but that does not fit the ship. It will likely not fit any ship perfectly. Hence the significant alteration of the engine mounts, even cutting the ship's structural elements and reworking them."

"Right. And all the swearing going on around here."

Spock pulled his large padd out of his satchel. The screen opened onto a diagram of the new impulse engine in place. The mounting structure glowed.

"The engine mounts are partly floating, and where they are not floating, they are isolated. Some of the simulations indicate that certain waveforms in the impulse engines could induce the entire engine mount structure to oscillate."

"Disastrously?" Her face became brightly amused. "I'm assigned to this ship."

"No. The engine controllers are being programmed to avoid damage. But that possibly results in lower engine performance, negating some portion of the upgrade."

She picked up a gauge, examined it. "They installed programmable dampeners all along the aft beam. Took two days to put them in."

"Yes. And said programming needs data. The ship is going to make a few dry runs, as I understand it, to model the system. Chief Ping wishes to have more data than would otherwise be available, hence the installation of the sensors."

She held up the gauge. "Ever installed one of these?"

"By no means. And your desire to not interact with the Chief Engineer is not practical nor desirable, I'm afraid."

"Just trying to save you. He really doesn't like you."

"Why did he agree to allow me to conduct my assignment?"

She looked unduly amused, eyes shining. "Commander Overlander tricked him. Got him all excited about the project. Then later just happened to say it was you." She laughed. "He was. Pissed. More so than anyone expected."

"I appreciate the warning."

"Well, the stuff is here. We can look at the work orders and the rosters and if we aren't on them, get on them so we aren't in the way. Sound good?"

Spock nodded. "I appreciate your assistance."

"Yeah, well . . ." She blushed.

She pulled the basket out again, tilted her head. "This is mostly crawling around, installing and testing, and testing again. Easy. But that's a whole lot of sensors in that basket."

Engineering was in disarray. Uninstalled components were lined up along the bays, and the port bulkhead had been cut open to get access to the conduits behind it.

Ping stood at a control board with his assistant. Spock walked that way, but Hully made a hissing noise, nodded at the smaller board beside the door to the Chief's office.

She swept her fingers over the board, moving the complex web of dependent tasks around. They were colored as to whether they were completed, or whether the supplies to start them were in storage or onroute on time. She shifted in the Z dimension, showing the personnel.

"Here it is, same baskets. Not sure what the label stands for." She drilled down into the task specifics. "We have a four hour window on the aft area starting in forty nine minutes. TBD on who is supposed to show us the install procedure. We will have to talk to Chief."

Hully turned around and watched Chief Ping talking to his assistant. "I was going to suggest suiting up first, but let's go talk to him now. Brace yourself."

Ping turned at their approach, handed the cutter he held to his assistant, whose hands were already full. The gaze he turned to Spock was dark, displeased. Spock doubted he needed more controls in place, but he settled himself into calm and felt well established there.

"Reporting, sir," Spock said.

"I see that, Cadet. Can't exactly mistake you for anyone else."

"Chief, I see that the aft trusses are open for a decently long block today," Hully said. "Who is assigned to procedure training?"

"Oppo is. He's in the main conduit right now."

"Oppo. Right sir." Hully did not sound pleased to hear this.

"Problem, Crewmember?"

Hully stood straighter. "No, sir."

"Get suited up. Make sure this greenie here is suited properly. Fortunately for you, he's human shaped, at least."

Beside Ping, his assistant regripped the things he held. Hully opened her mouth, closed it again. "Right sir. That is convenient." She turned. "Come on, Cadet."

In the locker room, Spock noticed Hully's hands were shaking as he pulled the isolation suit over her boot.

"May I speak to you?" Spock said.

She shaped her face into a more pleasant expression and looked up at him.

"Do not concern yourself," Spock said.

She yanked the foot of the suit over her other boot and jumped up and down to pull the suit up to her waist.

"You don't have feelings, Cadet?"

"I am perfectly able to prioritize what opinions are of value." He sealed up the front of the suit. He immediately felt pleasantly warm. He wondered if he spent most days too cold.

She held off on sealing up her suit front, picked up her things. Her movements were angry. She started to stalk out.

Spock took hold of the spare material of the suit sleeve and turned her around.

She jerked her hand back to make him let go. "You are so out of line, Cadet."

Spock nodded. "Yes, I am. Do not provoke the same with your chief. Certainly not for my sake."

She blinked at him. "You dog." She rolled her eyes. "Fine." She rearranged the things she held, put a few items into her utility pouch. "It's also that I don't like Oppo. He's always hitting on me. Won't take a no. He puts his hands on me using some lame excuse, I'm kicking him off the truss."

"What is his rank?"

"Ensign. Everyone outranks me. Except you." She smiled. "Let's go, Cadet."

They were issued antigrav belts instead of fall harnesses, and filled their belts with cutters of various sizes, electronic spanners, and calibrated measures.

Ensign Oppo was about Kirk's height and coloring, but his hair was straight and long enough to cover his ears, and his features were drawn out, almost slack, and he had a triangle of red beard just under his lower lip.

He scratched his ear and stared at Hully while he talked. "Herme gauges. Right. They're easy. Let me get a belt and I'll show you in place."

Spock had his padd out, checking the positions of the sensor units best installed this session.

"Did you tether that?" Hully tipped the padd to look under it. "Spock, don't be such a numbskull NUB. Tethers are in the bins there."

Spock instawelded a flip-out hook bar onto the back of his padd and strung it to his belt on the ring where the tools were tethered.

Hully had followed him. "Drop equipment in the brand new engine bay and Ping will roast you alive. Nothing goes in without being secured. Got it?"

"Yes, sir."

She calmed.

Spock dropped his voice. "I will try not to embarrass you."

"It wasn't really that. Or. Hell. Maybe it was." She frowned, dropped her voice too. "I don't want to seem like I'm piling on to you."

"You are not. I require correction."

She smiled. "I'm not exactly helping by instructing you ahead of time before you mess up. I don't know what you don't know."

They went up two decks, swishing in their suits. They went up an access tube. Oppo insisted that Hully go first and him second. Spock raised a brow and followed. At the access portal, Oppo had to squeeze up alongside Hully to put in the code for it to open. Hully was red when the three of them emerged onto the sloped deck the foot of the engine structure. Spock thought he could hear her grinding her teeth.

They turned on their belts and free climbed to the upper aft truss, careful of loose wiring harnesses and not yet deburred corners. They climbed three decks high to the upper crossing truss. Spock didn't entirely trust the antigrav belt to engage should he fall, so he did not feel he could free both hands the way Oppo and Hully did.

Spock knew the precise location of the first sensor, but Oppo didn't believe him. Spock pulled out the padd to show him the measurements. Oppo did the measurements, marked, did them again, marked in a second color. He took out a gauge, put marking color on the mounts and pressed it to the measurements to leave yet more marks. "This install today is pretty low tolerance. You have a few on there coded purple. You'll block the installation of something else if you mess it up. You'll need to bracket the gauge and use the lasers. Keep the error below a hundredth of a millimeter."

He used a cutter to make holes, cleaned up the slag with another tool, set the gauge in place and pressed hard to make it latch on.

"That's it. Even a brain damaged noob can handle it."

"And it is already powered, sir?" Spock said, eager to see the data.

"Yes." He touched the side of the small display on the gauge. "It should be pinging. Can you see it?"

Spock changed screens on his padd. There were long lists of devices announcing themselves. He found the gauge, marked it as special, glanced at the raw data stream showing every tiny movement of the truss, every piece of equipment on the ship echoing in the numbers.

Oppo climbed hand over hand around Hully who pressed herself against the truss to let him pass. She rolled her eyes, pressed her lips tightly together.

Oppo insisted on helping for an hour and a half. Hully kept Spock between the two of them as much as possible.

When they were finally alone she huffed and sighed. "And the chief thinks you're the annoying one."

They installed six more gauges before having to climb down due to their work time window closing. Spock's fingers were nicked and raw from the rough metal. Hully had put on a personal pair of gloves from her belt pouch. Spock had not even considered bringing such a thing.

They stopped by the board in engineering again to make sure the schedule hadn't changed. Ping was in his office. He came to the doorway. "Fortunately, didn't issue you any cutters big enough to do any real damage. Anything positive to report?"

"Yes, sir. Fourteen sensors in place. Spock is going to write a summary tech report for practice."

"Give me the telemetry off them and basic stats on the numbers."

"Yes, sir," Spock said.

Ping tossed his head. "When you are out of the bunny suits, see him off the ship, Crewmember. He can work on reports somewhere he's wanted."

As they approached the gangway off the ship, Hully said, "I think I'm going to talk to the commander."

Spock stopped, forcing her to do so as well. "Please respect my ability to see to myself, Crewmember. I will speak to Commander Overlander if I feel it is necessary."

She put her hands on her hips. "Yeah, but you aren't going to."

"Because it is unnecessary."

"You deserve more respect than that."

"I have not earned it." Spock waited for two ensigns to pass. They passed slowly, turned to look behind them at him.

"Chief Ping is justified in his dislike of me, but perhaps not in his behavior."

"What'd you do to him?"

"I inadvertently made a great deal of work for him prior to this. I have no difficulty withstanding his method of getting back at me. I would prefer it to be otherwise, but it is not."

She propped her hands higher on her hips. "You mean the virus? The one that won us the war?" She waited, face determined. "Okay. Your choice, I guess. You have another window on the roster two days from now. Five hour block. I'll meet you right here forty five before, okay?"

"Thank you."

"Don't study too hard in the meantime."

"I am afraid I am unable to comply with that."

She rolled her eyes and walked away.

* * *

A/N: Will try to post weekly. Usually between Tuesday and Thursday. Something to help get over the hump.


	2. Intimacy

Chapter 2 - Intimacy

"How was the Apollo?"

Kirk sat up in bed and waved the lights brighter. He'd been curled up, reading the now archival profiles of the larger colonies of the Lohanna Sector. Very few colonists remained after fighting had gone on for so many years.

"It was interesting," Spock said.

"Trouble with the Apollo's Chief?"

"Yes. But it is no matter."

Kirk smiled with affection. "I like that about you." He tossed the covers aside with a flare. "Come over here."

Spock put his things down on the desk and came over. He smelled of resins and ozone.

"Want to get out of that uniform?"

Kirk ran his eyes over Spock as he undressed with smooth efficiency and dropped his uniform over the desk chair.

"I need to memorize you," Kirk said.

"I see."

"You okay? I mean. You seem a little . . ." Kirk tilted his head. "Remote, maybe."

"I am not looking forward to being separated."

"That's all that's wrong?"

Spock nodded, eyes distant. He rubbed his fingers over his thumb, a gesture Kirk had never seen before. Kirk reached out slowly, giving Spock time to pull away, and took hold of Spock's right hand.

"Well, let's make the best of it, right now, shall we?"

Kirk pulled downward on Spock's hand, until Spock knelt on the bed, straddling Kirk's legs. Kirk took his arms and pulled him down into a kiss. He rocked back and ran his eyes over Spock's chest, over the furred line obscuring the ripples of his abdomen.

"Yes," Kirk said, confirming something inside himself. He hadn't meant to speak aloud.

Kirk tightened his left hand on Spock's right hand again. Spock glanced down at their joined hands and back at Kirk's face.

Kirk steered Spock to the bed, urged him to lie back so he could look at him more. "While we're apart I'm going to have to fantasize about you."

Spock's left brow went up and stayed up.

Kirk leaned forward and planted a kiss on Spock's knee. "I want to make sure we can have commsex. When I can arrange the private time on my end for it, that is."

"What is that?"

Kirk squeezed Spock's foot. "What do you mean, what is that? It's talking dirty to another over a comm line while doing other things."

Spock lifted his head. "I cannot successfully do this."

"You can't?"

Spock shook his head. "I must have another presence to touch. It is true for all Vulcans."

"But you aren't entirely Vulcan."

"In this, I am."

Kirk felt his desire fading. "Spock. You won't get any release the entire time we're apart?"

"I expect not. But I am accustomed to controlling this. I did so before we met."

Kirk stared. He felt horror creeping up through his innards. "Still. No wonder you're sad about me going."

"It isn't that. Or, it isn't that at this time. I will most definitely miss your presence."

Kirk crawled forward, took Spock into his arms, rolled to the side, pulled them tightly together. He kissed him fiercely before relenting.

Spock's cheek was pressed against Kirk's temple. Spock's upper arm was pressing hard against his own. Spock's hand was locked on the small of his back. He felt embraced and secure.

"You could talk dirty to me," Kirk said. "A skill that will be very useful over the comm. For me, I guess. I don't know what we are going to do for you."

Spock's arm tightened more. "At this time we are focussing on you."

Kirk talked into Spock's collar bone. "You are becoming a little more dominant here."

"Is that problem?"

"No. No."

Kirk closed his eyes, relaxed, felt everything inside more than out.

Spock's voice came low, close to Kirk's ear. "I am awaiting your touch." He hesitated. Kirk heard him swallow hard and exhale in a huff what could have been nerves or annoyed uncertainty. "You are making me a part of you. You are taking away every bit of loneliness I have every experienced. I feel your trust, and it is absolute. But I can also feel your discipline. You are resisting yourself."

Spock hesitated longer this time. Kirk held his breath, suspended on a delicate bubble that was threatening to rupture at any moment.

Spock's voice was low and breathy. "I am joyful. I have never felt that emotion. It was out of reach for me. Impossible. But you have gifted it to me."

A tear joined with the sweat on Kirk's cheek. He bit his lips.

Kirk rose up and put their mouths together. He stroked Spock's face as he kissed him. A tear dropped on Spock's cheek.

"James?"

"It's okay," Kirk said, and put their mouths together again. "It's okay," he repeated. He pulled away and kept stroking Spock's face.

"I did not intend to emotionally weaken you," Spock said.

Kirk bit his lips again. He put his forehead to Spock's chest. He breathed deep, smelled Spock's skin. "I knew . . . know I mean a lot to you." Kirk made a noise of frustration. "Maybe I shouldn't try to explain."

Spock's hands stroked Kirk's hair, his shoulders.

Kirk put his forehead down again, this time on Spock's shoulder. "You're amazing." He swallowed hard, kissed the shoulder before him. He sniffled again. "I love you. I think I say that half seriously most of the time."

Kirk lifted his head, took a deep breath.

Spock said, "I do not fully understand that emotion."

"I know. I didn't say that to pressure you into saying anything. I just couldn't not say it." Kirk dabbed at his eyes, which were still burning, even though he didn't think they should be. "You are becoming everything to me. Speaking of things one never expected." He gave a painful smile.

They stared at each other.

Spock rubbed Kirk's arms. "It is your rest period and I must write up my activities from the Apollo into a practice preliminary report."

Kirk felt his chest strengthening, his eyes cooling. "Okay." He kissed Spock deeply again before pushing himself to the side to let Spock get up.

* * *

A/N: This scene got clipped down for the rating. Full version is at AO3 or ksarchive, if you are interested.


	3. Debriefing

Chapter 3 - Debriefing

Despite being muted, Spock's Academy-assigned padd chirruped in the middle of class, in a way Spock had not heard before. Two officers in the rows ahead turned around to look back. Spock pulled the padd closer. A message with an official looking bracket around it flashed for his attention. It was from Commander Salicia Graham and it ordered him to report to her for a debriefing.

Spock expanded the message and replied that he was in class, but could depart if necessary.

A reply flashed back. "There aren't any first year classes scheduled at this time."

"I am not attending a first year class."

"Figures."

There was a lull. Spock didn't know the proper protocol to continue the interaction, and suspected the conversation was already outside protocol. Down in front, Captain Chanel was discussing modeling and estimation of short and long-term radiation hazards in living quarters and estimate model selection based on ship mission type and duty cycles.

A new line popped up. "Contact me as soon as you are available."

Spock hit the provided 'acknowledge' button and the message shrank away.

Just over an hour later, Spock followed the stream of officers out of the auditorium. As usual, several stopped to greet others, carry on conversations from the previous class meeting. Spock listened in to light banter, followup of life events, gossip. The atmosphere was vastly different from that of a class of Academy students, promisingly so.

Spock slipped sideways through the door and into the crowded corridor. He would have to exit the Annex to have enough privacy to use a communicator for a call.

"Well, that's delicious. Like an ice cream cone on a hot day. Ready to be licked as it melts."

Spock raised his head from checking his messages for a transmitter ID. This was the voice of Jaek, one of the third year cadets. He had cool brown skin and his black hair had been cut so short it appeared fuzzy.

Horton, Jaek's fairer companion with a shiny bald head, spoke lower. "If it ever does melt. Might be too icy. What an aft quarter, though. I'd follow that bootie anywhere."

Spock looked beyond the pair. Commander Graham was standing before the shifting 3D display covering the wall outside the auditorium, speaking in friendly terms with a Lieutenant from their class. Graham was narrow framed, and her light brown hair was fixed in a series of waves, ending in a curl toward her neck, a more reserved style than she'd worn in the feeds with Kirk months ago.

"Mmmm mm," Jaek said with excessive feeling. He caught sight of Spock behind them. "Get lost, Plebe. This is a virile, human male conversation."

Spock stepped between them, sideways to avoid touching either of them, and walked over to Graham, waited two meters away for her attention to turn his way.

"What's that skinny ogre doing?" Jaek said. "Cripes."

Spock heard them approach. Graham turned.

"Ah, Cadet. Just the Vulcan I needed to see." She glanced sharply at the other two coming up behind Spock. Spock heard them stop.

Graham's attention returned to Spock. She looked him up and down with an appraising eye. "Well. Interesting to finally meet you. Only got to hear your voice before now. In fact, I still hear it in my flashbacks."

Spock bowed his head. "I am very pleased to see you whole and in uniform, sir."

"No thanks to your best efforts otherwise, Cadet. I am indeed alive and back on duty." Her face relaxed, formed one of the subtle sly smiles Kirk favored in similar conversation. "But I'm here, right now, because you missed getting a critical debriefing."

"I reported to security, sir."

"I saw that one. It's not about that. Actually, you are doing me the incredible favor of saving me from reading yet another report. This way, I'm justified in just milking you for what I want over drinks." She turned and started walking. Spock followed, came alongside. "You drink?" she asked.

"Not generally, sir. It has little effect on me."

"You sound like an expensive date, Cadet. Well, you can watch me down a few daiquiris. It's a tradition for me to get at least one from this little tavern near HQ before shipping out and I haven't had a chance yet. It's a bit of superstition of mine. You probably don't partake of those, either."

Spock could feel eyes on him from behind.

"No, sir."

"You must be great at parties."

Automatic doors sealed behind them. They were in HQ proper, but in the public corridors. She glanced behind them without breaking stride.

"Getting harassed, Cadet?"

"Actually, sir. You were."

"Ohhh ho." She smiled like a predator. "Yeah. Little boys."

"Fascinating," Spock said. "This penchant for the males of your species to do the exact opposite of that which would be most likely to woo a mate."

She walked with her head down, hiding a laugh. She shook her head, making her hair sway, became serious again an instant later. They stepped through the interlock of the outside doors.

"It's two blocks that way. Called the Tooth of the Dragon." Her communicator chirped and she flipped it out. "I just have to deal with this."

She took care of ship's business as they walked. It was sunny today, but heavily breezy, the kind of day where Spock noticed that his duty uniform wasn't sufficiently windproof. He was grateful when they arrived.

The tavern's purple metallic scaly entrance was squeezed between an interplanetary exchange office and an automated masseuse and UV parlor. The tables were each in an claw themed alcove with chainmail curtains.

"Thermal shirt, Cadet," she said. "How about over here?"

They slid in across from each other at a table in the corner.

"Sir?"

"Duty thermal shirt. You should be wearing one under your uniform if you got cold on that walk. I'm wearing one now. That's how I know."

"Yes, sir."

She set her communicator down, open to the ship's computer for audio logging, spoke an introduction onto the file with her name and serial number, had Spock do the same.

She looked straight at him. "You were with the Militants."

"Yes, sir."

Nerves overtook her skin for a few heartbeats, then the effect passed.

She said, "Vulcan Planetary Council has requested that the Federation remove their POWs from a correctional institution on Tantalus V and deliver them to a station in Vulcan orbit. USS Hampton has been ordered to do that. I want to know what I might be dealing with en route with these unusual guests. Just so you know the background."

"Understood, Commander."

"I can't believe you weren't debriefed. There should be hours of interviews for the computer to use for intelligence. Did your father block it? I saw he's a bit influential."

"Not to my knowledge. He has stated to me that I must face the consequences of my choices."

"Someone dropped the ball, then. Or assumed he'd object and didn't want to make official waves. Given the diplomatic strain we were under at the time, I suppose I can accept that."

She verified stardates and locations for the log. "All right, Cadet. Your ship commander was Zuram, right? That how you say his name?"

"Sufficiently accurate."

"Tell me about him."

Spock did so, while Graham sipped a dark pink liquid smelling of fruit and alcohol. He explained how Zuram ran the ship, how he recruited, how he usually seemed angry but kept it under control, which was unusual, usually a Vulcan would regain control or lose control completely if conditions went unresolved indefinitely. She prompted him for personality traits, started to conduct what if scenarios. Would he try and escape and how? Spock informed her that he had to guess, and did so. It became easier to guess as he went on. And Spock wondered at his willingness to forgo the rigors of logic based on hard facts.

When he slowed in his recitation, she said, "I understand what a guess is, Cadet. You know more soft info than you realize. And I need that out of you. Go on."

Spock continued. She asked more. Was Zuram still violent? Why was he a Militant in the first place?

Spock ran out of things to say about his former commander, even guesses. She ate peanuts one at a time in the ensuing silence.

"Did you have to do anything you regret?" She looked him up and down.

"Only to stand by helplessly. I was not with them long enough to be trusted with perpetrating violence. It can trigger a bloodlust that is difficult to rein in."

"Now, that's interesting. Who was second in command?"

Spock went through the officers of the flagship. She nodded often, drank a second daiquiri.

"I was tempted to request you for the mission," she said.

"That would not be wise. I betrayed them and my presence would be un-helpful. James, on the other hand, would be helpful to you."

Her left brow went up. Spock wondered if she'd picked that up from him just in the last forty-five minutes.

"How so? If your plan is to keep him from Lohanna, it won't work. Tantalus is only 4 days away. This should be a milk run. Worse case, Kirk needs new transport arrangements."

"I realize that. I suggest it because I know Zuram respects James."

"Now that does sound useful." She pushed the peanuts away. "The ambassador in his report stated that Zuram seemed frightened, hence his request. What would it take to scare him?"

"There was one being who frightened him, but he is dead. I have no alternative theories that are plausible. He would not frighten easily."

"That was my assumption. There've been some strange reports from suppliers to the colony and from the organization that oversees the penal facility. Nothing actionable, but odd stuff. Reports of one thing, then negations of those reports. And now a scared Vulcan Militant. Not a situation to just waltz into without eyes wide open and brain fully engaged."

She pushed the peanuts aside. "Can I buy you one, or do you need to get back?"

"I have completed my last class period of the day. But I do not require alcohol, although I understand and appreciate the social meaning of the offer."

She flipped the communicator closed and left it on the table. She looked him up and down for a fourth time. "I have to admit, I couldn't imagine what Kirk saw in you, especially given your age. I'll concede you might have one or maybe two redeeming qualities."

"I also was curious to meet you, Commander, after seeing you with James in the feeds. And I am very pleased that you are intact. And I am honored at the risk you put forth toward preserving my planet-"

"Your father already covered this." This was snapped out.

Spock nodded.

She sucked down the remaining portion of her daiquiri in one long pull, set it aside, looked at her fingertips.

Spock kept his gaze down, gave the impression that he could wait indefinitely.

She put her glass aside with care. "This has been a tougher action to get over than arguably much worse ones."

She looked around the bar outside the alcove. Frowned.

"It was the way all the assumptions got flipped upside down. The way people acted without any introspection and it was all hands to prevent something that shouldn't have been possible in the first place. And then. The way once command started shining a light on things, I was seen as suspicious. Me. Had to fight like a demon to prove otherwise. I don't like to believe we're that fragile on either side of things. Even after what happened. Starfleet, that is. We're supposed to be on the side of right. I still believe that. And maybe that potentially makes me part of the problem."

She picked up and sucked up the newly melted and pink stained ice water. "This mission looks like it might be upside down as well. Who the hell knows what's going on?" She waved the bartender away from giving her a refill. "It'll be good to have James along. He's solid. Resilient. Doesn't seem to care if there's chaos."

"He sees situations clearly when it seems most unlikely to gain such perception."

She nodded, pushed out of the booth. "I have a ship full of things to take care of." She tugged her uniform down crisply. "And back to the Academy with you, Cadet. You've taken up enough of my time."

"Yes, sir. And good luck, sir."

She gave her head a rapid shake. "What kind of Vulcan are you?"

"I am myself, sir."

"I see. Well. Hold onto that if you can."

* * *

"Spock," Kirk put his hands on Spock's arms and gripped hard. He had arrived in Spock's dorm room as soon as Spock messaged that he had returned from dinner and a lab assignment.

Kirk shook his head. "Instead of shipping out in eight days, I'm shipping out in eight hours."

"Did I act in error?"

Kirk relented, spoke gently. "No."

Spock said, "You have acted bored the last few days. Unusually fidgety."

Kirk smiled. "I have been that. But what exactly did you tell Graham? I've only talked to Zuram twice, maybe three times. Through a forcefield."

"Zuram contacted my father specifically to verify that my brother was dead. My father explained how he died. Zuram told him he was impressed with you before, but this increased his opinion."

Kirk put his chest out. "I didn't get the sense your old commander was impressed with me."

"He stated to my father that he thought you were strong and fair despite the broader situation encouraging otherwise. That isolation from circumstance to retain one's own path is one of the essences of Vulcan strength, even for those who do not closely follow Surak."

Kirk let out a long breath. "And Zuram respects the personal touch when it comes to killing. I suppose I knew that."

"And he was frightened of Sybok, unable to overcome him, which you succeeded at."

Kirk rubbed his forehead. "I haven't thought about what happened lately. At least one of those melds pushed the memories down a bit, I suspect. Made the memories feel old." He lifted his gaze. "How are you doing? I haven't asked."

"I am well enough. I have more memories of him than those last few. Those recent memories are, perhaps, diluted by that past. I am relieved, perhaps regretful to be so, if I allow myself to feel anything."

Kirk touched Spock's arms again, rocked up and kissed him. "I should report to the Hampton a little earlier than my orders. That leaves us a few hours."

"Do you wish to engage in intercourse again?"

Kirk grinned, shook his head. "No. I just want to hold you."

* * *

Spock lay staring at the ceiling. He thought over his Leadership readings, wondered about the sections he had not understood. He did not wish to question Kirk about them, as he had planned to previously.

Kirk was curled around him, on his side, his bare skin shifting minutely over Spock's as he breathed. He wasn't asleep, but his eyes were closed and he lay unmoving. Spock could feel Kirk's pulse in his leg, at his wrist where it lay over his chest, could feel his heart against his ribs. He smelled vaguely like the ocean.

Spock closed his eyes as well, let himself float without disciplines. Let his human nervous system responses take over. Fell into sleep.


	4. Want to Bet?

Chapter 4 - Want to bet?

"Oh four hundred." Kirk curled his body to sit up and efficiently pulled on his clothes. "I brought my duffel, so I'll head out from here."

Spock reached over his head and pushed the light controller up. Kirk had been moving around in the dark, undetected by the sensors. Spock stood up wrapped in the blanket off the bed. Even so, his sleep-inhibited body felt the air as painfully chilling.

Kirk kissed him next to his nose. "I'll see you in a little over a week, ten days maybe. I'll try and call every day. I don't have much in the way of duties until we arrive." He held the sides of Spock's head. "Study hard, okay? And good luck with your project on the Apollo. Behave yourself. Tell Overlander-"

"You need to go."

"Right."

Kirk flipped open his communicator and requested a beam out.

* * *

The USS Hampton's clock was four hours and some minutes shifted from HQ's and the transporter room was busy. A dark black woman with tightly braided hair pushed through an exitting group at the door, gave Kirk an unemotional looking over.

"Yeoman?" Kirk said.

"You're early." She stepped out and Kirk followed. "Lt. Commander Kirk, I'm Yeoman Cheumari," she said with a noble nod.

Kirk stood up straighter. He considered asking if they were on schedule for departure, then reconsidered since it wasn't his ship.

Graham was on the hangar deck, looking over a shuttle with a team from engineering. "I want two fully functioning shuttles. Beam downs are not possible on a prison planet. Hello Kirk," she added without pulling her head out of the access panel beside the shuttle door.

She swung back, hanging on the shuttle's portal a long moment before stepping back. "Lt. Commander Kirk, this is my chief engineer and his best team. Or so they tell me, often. Chief Ionia, this is our adviser for the voyage."

They shook hands.

She faced Ionia, propped her fists on her hips. "You have everything you need to fix this before we arrive?"

"We have almost enough parts to put together a third shuttle."

"Don't tempt me." She dropped her arms and started walking, glanced back. "Keep me informed, Chief."

Kirk caught up with her halfway to the hangar exit.

"How are you, Kirk? James."

"I'm quite well."

The lift arrived.

"You?" he asked.

She looked side-eyed at him, spoke with her jaw clenched. "I'll be better once we're underway. I always am. When I have to give up on making ready. Let me introduce you to the senior officers on the bridge. We'll have a full mission conference in two days. I haven't had a chance to review the full files myself so having one before then would be painful. I don't suppose you have reviewed everything either."

"I will before the meeting you're calling."

"I'm somewhat relieved you aren't the distraction you might be."

She stood taller, chin out. The lift doors opened onto the bridge.

A slim man with strawberry blond hair, red eyes, and broad shoulders stepped over from beside communications. He had ridged brows and ears. This was Lt. Hogan, whom Kirk had met during the dinner on the Potemkin.

"I'm putting Kirk under you in the chain, in case it comes up," Graham said. "If I'm out of commission. I don't expect it to come up, but just in case it does." She glanced around the bridge. "You got that, Nav, Helm? I'll tell Chief as well." She looked at Kirk." You all right with that?"

"I'm all right with that if your officers are."

Yeoman Cheumari stepped onto the bridge.

"She reads my mind. Show Kirk his quarters, Yeoman. You're sharing with head of security, who'll be on the landing party, so get to know him."

Kirk gave a polite nod. "Yes, sir."

Graham sniffed. "That won't last."

* * *

Spock sat before a display terminal showing navigational beacons, major systems, and other interstellar traffic in a shifting four dimensional coded display. He arranged the display elements before him yet again. The control board simulation practice was designed intentionally to limit his information and that made his hands long to move to try and correct it. He rested his hands in his lap and waited for Veeyla, the student on his left, to finish the astronomical part of their exercise. Veeyla had scales along her jaw and from her hairline leading to her eyebrows. P'Losiwst had introduced her as being from Oregon.

P'Losiwst sat on Spock's right, her antenna curved forward as if they might be stalks for a second set of eyes. At P'Losiwst's request they had gathered after dinner at one of the public lab units to do station practice tasks. The instructor had emphasized using the practice to develop the verbal communication necessary to overcome differences in information, skills, and work style. But Spock's companions were intently silent, concentrating fully on their displays.

P'Losiwst glanced up at Spock, possibly to check again if he was bored. She had already asked twice. Spock could easily work on something else at the same time in his head, but he was instead wondering what Kirk was doing just then. He had beamed away thirty seven hours, forty three minutes, and twenty seconds ago. They had had a short video chat that morning while Kirk was on lunch and Spock was between classes. Kirk had been distant, official, his thoughts steeped in his new environment.

Veeyla's astronomical gravity and hazard assessments came through to Spock's screen. Spock had to trust them, even though his hands itched to verify everything, a task of less than a minute given the simplicity of the simulation. He used what he'd been given, plotted an optimum course, and submitted it to P'Losiwst, who was to initiate the necessary maneuvers. The timeline would then speed ahead, P'Losiwst would make adjustments as needed. And they would be scored on measures such as energy efficiency, reduced radiation hazards, and wear on equipment. Spock knew they should be speaking more about each of their tasks. P'Losiwst and Veeyla, when they spoke at all, were discussing completely other matters related to the quality of their dorm facilities. Spock needed to learn how to effectively address human limitations. Within minutes of starting the simulation he estimated he'd already corrected the two of them enough for one session. He put his hands back in his lap, watched the small corner display with the simulated ship's status and navigational plotting.

The public terminal lab was an extension of a casual mess area providing snacks and coffee. Other cadets flowed through in waves. Someone stopped behind Spock. Spock could feel the attention on the back of his neck.

"Notice that all the little alien plebes huddle together for protection."

Spock turned from his display to face Jaek. He had Horton with him and a pair of second year female cadets, whose poses indicated they would prefer to walk on.

"I'm earthen," Veeyla said. "I'm just into body modification."

Jaek ignored this. He leaned closer to Spock. "Stand up when I'm talking to you, Plebe."

P'Losiwst poked at her screen and the terminals went into standby, which meant their session would not count. Spock stood with calm dignity, faced Jaek with mild curiosity.

"You're a real kiss up in Chanel's course. You know that?"

"I was not aware of that, Senior Cadet. Is it a matter I should address in some manner?"

Jaek's nose twitched. He shook his head as if smelling something unpleasant.

"You shouldn't even be in the course."

Spock nodded politely to acknowledge this.

"That's it? Your entire response?"

"I am agreeing with you, sir. My placement was not based on prior qualifications."

"So you are admitting you are a suck up?"

"I am not familiar with that concept and so cannot offer a response of any value."

Horton crossed his arms and snorted. "You sure sound like a computer."

Spock assessed Horton, assessed the other cadets of various years who were slowing or turning to listen in. Turned back to Jaek.

Jaek said, "Give me ten, Plebe, for annoying the hell out of me."

Spock stared at him in question.

"Really? You've seen other losers get this treatment. I know you have. Push ups, Plebe."

Spock stepped back from the terminals to where there was adequate space. He stopped and cocked his head. "Is this intended to be a punishment? You are aware, Senior Cadet, of how light your gravity is relative to mine."

"Just do it."

"Of course, sir."

Spock dropped to the floor as a plank and caught himself with his hands, began replicating the rather crude exercise he'd seen performed by others. Jaek stepped over in front of him, counting, and Spock knew the instant before it happened, felt Jaek's intent like a shift in the projection of his attention, the flow of the energy in his limbs. He swiped a foot at Spock's left hand. Spock lifted that hand, avoiding the touch, put it behind his back, shifted his body over his right hand, and continued pushing off the floor one handed.

Spock stood up. More cadets had gathered to watch, their expressions reminded Spock too much of Ranger's security, except for the truly amused smiles, which were something else he was less familiar with.

"Ten completed, sir."

Jaek stepped closer, invasively close, raised his chin and looked down at Spock. His face was distorted by emotion. "I should make you do a hundred."

"The only difference between ten and a hundred is the tediousness of your having to count, Cadet. It is no matter to me."

Jaek's shoulders dropped, he pinched his lips together. "You're an ass. That isn't going to go well for you," he said, low enough Spock doubted any human could hear him.

"That's enough, Cadet. You got your push ups."

This was a voice from the wide corridor near the food slots and cafe tables. It was a voice that expected to be obeyed.

Jaek stepped back, dropped his gaze. He nodded and mumbled something and strode off. His companions followed more slowly. Jaek stopped abruptly and waited for Horton to catch up. Spock remained standing, watching them depart. The other cadets began shuffling off. Conversation rose again.

"Bastard. Elfin dweeb," Jaek said when they reached the edge of the lab space. "Don't know what Chanel's thinking. He should be stuck on the bottom with the rest of the loser noobs."

The source of the commanding voice was approaching from the left, footsteps sounding of fine, smooth soled shoes. Spock ignored this approach, in favor of keeping his attention ahead of him.

Horton said, "Maybe Chanel likes the taste of alien. Certainly doesn't hide her appreciation of attention."

Jaek laughed. "That back there? No way." They reached the next set of doors. "Skinny bastard really grinds me." Jaek turned around, saw Spock there, watching from twenty six meters away. Jaek stopped, eyes narrowed, looked ready to return.

"Stand down, Cadet," said a voice beside Spock.

Spock turned, faced a middle aged human with contrasting blue-black hair and pale blue eyes. He wore Captain's braid, deployment insignia, not Academy. The man looked Spock over, as if he were something entirely new, then glanced at P'Losiwst and Veeyla as they stood up and came to attention. Spock noticed that three others were watching and waiting around the room, all senior Cadets with mentor badges on their collars. Spock expected they would have stepped in if this apparent visitor had not. Eventually.

The captain looked at each of them again. "As you were, Cadets." He strode away.

Spock and his companions said some version of "Yes, Captain."

Spock resumed his seat. He sensed the remaining attention on them shift away. The mentors moved on.

"Should we start over?" P'Losiwst asked.

"We should complete this one," Spock said.

P'Losiwst sighed. "Yeah, my part. Okay, I didn't want to work while . . . "

"Understood."

P'Losiwst turned to look over her shoulder. The doors had closed behind the captain. "You know who that was?"

"No. A visitor I assume."

"That was Captain Pike." P'Losiwst leaned forward over her terminal. "Starfleet's greatest living explorer. He's come back from missions to the edge of the galaxy, to the Mutara Nebula, all kind of crazy places. He's giving a talk this evening. Let's get done with this."

"He didn't seem really happy with us," Veeyla said.

"We are not beneath him in a regular chain of command, so it is no matter," Spock said.

P'Losiwst worked on her portion of their unfinished simulation, to some muttered swearing.

Veeyla said, "Do I really look like an alien? I haven't even had that much done."

She stared at Spock presumably because P'Losiwst was busy.

"I am afraid I cannot offer an informed opinion."

She looked him over with new studiousness. "I really like your ears."

Spock almost raised a brow, but stopped himself before it got more than halfway.

* * *

"Captain. An honor." Vice Admiral Justin said as Pike entered the central waiting area of the Academy administrative offices. He extended a hand. "You're quite early for your talk."

Pike returned the handshake. "I decided to indulge in a little self tour for nostalgia sake."

"Would you like something while you wait? I have a private stash out of which I can probably scare up something worth your while despite your wide travels."

"Oh, no thank you, Admiral. I prefer to stay sharp."

The admiral accepted a small padd from an administrative assistant. Nodded at it. Handed it back. "And how do you find things around the academy upon your return?"

Pike smiled. Did not relax his posture. "The same and different."

"Stay around longer. It starts to look the same every class."

"You have a Vulcan."

Justin sat against the back of one of the low square chairs, loosely crossed his arms. "We do. I don't see that as a change."

The secretaries and assistants that had looked up and smiled at Pike's entrance had gone back to work. Some were looking up again. Lt. Grange logged off the terminal he was using at the reception desk and stood straight.

"It's not that simple, Admiral," Pike said. "This organization relies heavily on a certain culture. His presence could very well be more disruptive than you understand."

Justin's eyes moved to Grange as he approached. "Lt. Grange, Captain Pike."

Grange shook the man's hand, schooled himself against flinching at his deadly grip. "Honored, Captain."

"Grange is head of student services," Justin said. "He'll show you to you the auditorium when the time comes. If Ensign Kelia from Student Events doesn't track you down before then."

Pike nodded. "Thank you, Lieutenant."

Admiral Justin said, "Lt. Grange works closely with the cadet you are concerned about."

"I'm not exactly concerned, Admiral. Just don't like to see changes made without proper consideration." He rubbed his hair back. "I understand perfectly well that change is a given."

"He's quite intelligent," Grange said. "He's a Federation member race. And he wants to be here."

"I don't need a lecture Lieutenant," Pike said.

Grange rocked back a half step, recovered. Nodded.

Pike's face grew stern. "I've had visiting Vulcan scientists on my ship on and off for years. I'm well aware how smart they are. Also well aware how hard they are hard to work with. Bloody stubborn, unlivable in close quarters, and when there's trouble they are the first to get out of the way."

"With all due respect, Captain," Grange said. "That doesn't describe Cadet Spock. And in any event. If he were difficult to work with, that would only make the learning for his many project partners more broad."

Pike looked back and forth between each of Grange's eyes. "I sense you are lecturing me again, Lieutenant."

Admiral Justin moved his index finger a twitch in the direction of the reception desk.

Grange gave a bowing nod. "If you'll excuse me, Captain. I have to finish something up before assisting with your talk."

Pike turned back to Justin. "What's going to happen when you try to hand the Vulcan a phaser? Is he going to refuse it?

Admiral Justin's face grew relaxed, knowing. "I doubt it, Captain. But I suppose we will see when the time comes." Admiral Justin pushed off the back of the chair. "Come into my office, Captain. The day has expired and you might not fancy a snort, but I do."

On the way past the main desk, Justin picked up a chrome trimmed padd.

Justin put the padd down on his desk and and went to a minimalist Japanese cabinet with half-moon doors for a faceted bottle and matching glass.

"Change your mind?"

"No sir." Pike put his hands behind his back. Rocked forward onto his toes. "I get the feeling you are about to ream me for being narrow minded and old fashioned."

Justin breathed in the fumes of his glass. "No, Chris, I'm not. Just keeping Grange out of trouble. I suspect he's personally invested in Cadet Spock even though he'd never admit it. There are no fewer than eight others who have requested Cadet Spock for their projects, but he volunteered with Grange before the others knew he was here. So far he's kept hold of him. He's better with paperwork than the rest of them put together and he has more friends in the back office here."

Justin sipped the blue liquid, set it down on the desk and took up the padd. "You make me realize I haven't checked the rankings yet this term."

"You can spare me the score. The Vulcan's at the top of them."

Justin scrolled a bit. "No. Eleventh." He studied the padd longer. "He's only doing average in an advanced officer's technical extended course. That's pulling him down along with Galactic Literature. Captain Chanel must have ordered him to take the advanced course. I probably would have blocked that if I'd noticed it. The boy needs to acclimate before getting tossed into something like that."

"Next term when you start weapon's drills, let me know how it goes. I mean it."

"He won't be here next term. He has some kind of family duties back on Vulcan. I'll let you know the year after." Justin put the padd down, picked up his glass again.

"More special treatment?"

"Not anymore than anyone else would get under similar unusual circumstances. It's to our benefit to take in the children of influential planetary families when they qualify. Keeps us in good stead. It's like the political marriages of old. Which being old fashioned, I expect you appreciate."

Pike bowed his head and shook it lightly. "I suppose I deserve that."

"You deserve more than that."

"I stand by my personal experience with Vulcans. He won't handle a weapon and you'll have to make yet another exception. And soon after, he won't be the only one demanding one."

"I'm willing to lay real money on my cadet. How much do you want to bet on this?"

"Really?" Pike laughed.

"Come on. How much?"

Pike shook his head.

"Chris. You think you're speaking out of experience, but you are speaking out of ignorance. How much?"

Pike looked away. "Hundred credits."

"Not much of a bet. But it's more a matter of pride anyway." Justin took a solid swig of his drink. "Come back after your talk. Cadet Spock will probably attend it, so you'll know where he's been in the interim. I'll have Grange bring him back with him after. We can see if your selective knowledge is right or my easygoing faith in my long experience."


	5. Pike

Chapter 5 - Pike

The auditorium was fuller than for Kirk's talk, with more civilians sitting in. Spock stood beside Grange, who skulked just as much this talk as he did during Kirk's. Kelia was not using her extra powers of charm tonight. Apparently captains were off limit, or perhaps Pike, at twice Kirk's age, was too old for her preferences.

The talk went on for an hour longer than it was scheduled for. Captain Pike had long, embellished stories of exploring beyond the edges of probe-mapped space, encountering undocumented spacefaring civilizations, both current and dead, energy beings who treated the crew like toys, scenes of geological beauty beyond what humans were able to comprehend. Neither he nor the audience wanted to stop interacting. But eventually, the captain gave in to Kelia's strained glances at the clock.

Kelia thanked Captain Pike in glowing terms, then made announcements about the All-Arounds, the senior cadet team scores. The other cadets waited as well, listened in. The senior cadets had been placed in randomly assigned teams at the opening of the term and were competing on grades, sports, low demerits and extra credit community projects. So far the red team was far in the lead, and Kelia spent some effort making sure the green and blue teams felt properly shamed. Someone asked why there was no ultraviolet team and wasn't that ethno-human-centric, which generated some laughter.

As the room emptied out of cadets, Spock tried to excuse himself to talk to P'Losiwst about continuing their station console practice, but Grange called him back.

"You're with me, Cadet. I have orders regarding you."

Spock tipped his head at P'Losiwst and Veeyla and followed Grange out.

Grange waded through the crowd exiting through the outside doors. When they were in a clear bit of hallway, he said, "Just to let you know. Yes, this is odd. No, I don't know what it's about."

Spock raised a brow. "Yes, sir."

They made their way down a short connector and into the main building, which was quiet in the late evening, the lighting entirely recessed and indirect.

Grange made his way through the darkened administrative area, buzzed at the door to the Superintendent's office. The door opened and Grange gestured for Spock to enter. Spock glanced in question as he passed, but Grange just tossed his head to urge him inside.

The Academy Superintendent was standing behind the desk and Captain Pike was lounging in a comfortable guest chair, long legs crossed, gleaming boot raised as if to inspect it. The door swished closed.

"Cadet Spock. Come on in."

Spock stopped two meters before the desk and stood at parade rest. He understood better the habits that made Kirk adopt that pose even outside of Starfleet.

"Have we met personally, Cadet?" Admiral Justin said.

"No, sir." Spock could smell alcohol radiating off the admiral, although not in high concentrations.

"Very good. I've given a few introductory speeches over the course of the term, so you've seen me, I'm sure. I'm Vice Admiral Justin."

"Honored, sir."

"And this is Captain Pike, as I'm sure you are aware."

Spock adjusted his stance to better face both of them. "Also Honored, sir."

No one spoke. Spock waited. He was curious, but assumed a point would be gotten to in due time.

Admiral Justin hitched up his uniform and sat down behind his desk. Relaxed. "This isn't an official protocol we are going to conduct, here, Cadet, just so that's clear." He waited. "You understand?"

"I think so, sir. You are conducting an unofficial protocol."

Captain Pike snorted. Spock turned his way. Pike was rubbing his mouth to eliminate his smile. Spock turned back to the highest rank present and waited.

"Cadet. See that box there on the corner of the desk? The walnut one."

Spock did. A well polished case with squirrely grain sat where he indicated. It had a brass latch made to look distressed and burnished, but it had an ID bioscanner built into it.

"It's unlocked. I want you to open it and look at what's in there. Examine it if you want to." He glanced at Pike as if to confirm something.

Spock stepped up to the box, swung clear the second stage catch of the latch. Inside was a glass and titanium phaser. From the style of the design it appeared to be forty years old. The power bar showed it was fully charged. Spock turned the case and craned his head to see if it had a safety and whether it was engaged.

"Is this yours, sir?"

"Yes, Cadet it is."

Nothing more was said. Spock was tempted to look to Captain Pike for additional clues, then decided he would give away as much as he gained, if not more. He was curious about the phaser. Such a thing would never be in a Vulcan's possession and Kirk only used a phaser in the line of duty out of the weapons locker. He didn't seem to own one personally. This device was old, but well cared for, like a favorite object, a sculpture or a musical instrument carried through life. But one that could deal vulnerability or death or pain, sterilely, bloodlessly, at a distance.

Spock considered confirming that he could pick it up, but he had been explicitly told he could as part of his instructions. Spock stared at Vice Admiral Justin. Something was going on, but he could not make a high enough probability guess to base his actions on. He did what he pleased to do, what he would do if he were alone, and took up the phaser, pointed down, checked that he had correctly assessed the status of the safety locking out the trigger, that the setting was on low stun. An energized locking bar was in place to block the mechanism from shifting above heavy stun, it too had a biosensor, one added later based on the mismatch in mechanism styles. The little triangular monitor indicators all glowed as if the phaser had just come off a charger, a fiery green from deep within the core of the unit.

Spock turned it carefully around, kept the emitter down. Examined it as an object of reverence, examined it as a device. The phase transducers, the energy conduits, everything very simple and carefully crafted to be highly reliable and not prone to damage.

"Handle a weapon before, Cadet?" Captain Pike asked.

Spock looked up, at Admiral Justin, who was watching him knowingly. Vice Admiral Justin had Spock's full records, such as they were. Spock had walked into a trap of sorts that he had not foreseen. It was the kind of situation Kirk somehow seemed to understand the moment it was presented to him. Spock experienced a burning frustration with himself. He had, in that moment, put himself and Kirk at risk with his poor ability to comprehend things without explicit evidence.

"Cadet?" Pike said in that obey-me voice.

"Yes, sir. I have sir."

"You know that beforehand?" Pike demanded of Justin.

"No. I didn't." Justin said. "What'd you handle?"

Now that Spock had hesitated, he was sunk. He understood that also too late.

"A launcher, sir. I do not know the specific model."

"Against who?" Pike asked.

"Bots sir."

Justin sat back. "I see. That's not in your records."

"No sir. For complicated reasons. It was omitted."

Pike said, "Cadet. You battled bots with a launcher and didn't want to put it on your Starfleet application?"

"It was unnecessary. I could obtain admission without doing so." Spock put the phaser back in the case, back into the perfectly molded felt form that it had come out of.

"Where did you do this fighting, I'd like to know?" Pike said.

Vice Admiral Justin was watching Spock intently.

Spock didn't answer.

"Do you know the penalty for not answering, Cadet?" Pike didn't sound threatening, he sounded curious.

"Yes," Spock said. "I have read all of the regulations pertaining to students and personnel. The difficulty is that I am faced with punishment for my refusal to answer which I may or may not be willing to accept, I have not yet decided, but answering reveals omissions by others in Starfleet who are not present to concede to their revelation."

"Cadet," Admiral Justin said. "I'm the bureaucrat that forced Personnel to file your Partnership Registration properly when they didn't want to. I can piece this together without an answer."

Justin leaned back more, appearing to enjoy himself. "Chris here won't say anything."

"I won't?" Pike said.

"Give the kid a break, Chris. The omissions aren't his doing. Does he look like he has a deep space commission?" He gestured at the box. "Nice phaser, isn't it."

"It seems a carefully crafted device. But I am unfamiliar with a powered weapon as a personal object of reverence, sir."

"You are familiar with unpowered weapons as personal objects of reverence, though," Justin said.

"More as clan heirlooms, sir."

"How many Vulcan traditional weapons have you been trained to use?"

Spock stopped to consider how to classify them. "The six traditional in our clan and two others from another clan."

"How many traditions of hand-to-hand fighting are you trained in?"

"Three, sir."

Justin looked at Pike. "You aware of that?"

Pike shook his head, brows low.

Justin reached behind him for a decorative bottle of blue liquid and a glass that was already stained blue. He talked as he poured. "Mistake one, Chris. That precious experience you are basing your wonderful assumptions on was with ordinary Vulcans. I know that because those are the only ones who leave the planet, the ones with fewer options at home and less bowing to ancient traditions. Spock here is from one the highest ranking and oldest families on the planet. No one can question those families on their commitment to peaceful non-emotion. So, he's schooled in pre-reform practices and traditions, including weapons, and martial arts."

"I wasn't aware of that."

Justin sipped his drink. "You aren't aware of much of anything, and you needed to have your fat nose rubbed in it. You aware that a wedding in his family can still to this day end up in a fight to the death?"

"You're pulling my leg now."

"Cadet, how's that work exactly, someone refuses the marriage? You still call the wedding spot a place of marriage and challenge? That I know."

"Yes sir. If one party of the betrothed does not wish to be married, that party can challenge. The betrothed and a champion selected by the denying party then fight."

Pike was sitting forward. "To the death?"

Spock turned to him, puzzled this. "How else could it work?"

Pike blinked at him. He sat back slowly. "You still haven't answered my original question. The admiral is trying his darnedest to distract me from it."

Justin spoke into his glass. "Because I can guess the answer. I still have more pieces of the puzzle than you, Chris. Though not all of them. Hadn't really bothered to make a picture out of it until now I admit. You got me riled up. Got the old mission commander juices flowing." He held up his glass in a toast to Captain Pike, set it down again. "Cadet, you do have to answer the Captain. You need to get in a better habit of answering questions from your superiors. You need to learn to trust more. Especially trust more."

Justin waited a beat. "Where did you battle bots, Cadet?"

Spock stared at the edge of the desk. "Wolfram Thesus V, sir."

Pike shook his head. "I don't get the significance of that, I admit. That was a turning point in the war."

"It was. While you were off cataloging pure energy beings and meteor ice fish, we had a bit of a dust up going on." Justin held his half-full glass up and examined it as the liquid caught the light.

Pike looked up at Spock. "So, you have bot experience."

"Where he got it doesn't leave this room," Justin said.

"Yes. Understood. But that's good. I wouldn't have expected that."

"Very brief experience, sir," Spock said.

"And he's willing to pick up a weapon. You owe me a hundred credits, Captain Pike."

"Oh, shit. I do." Pike reached into his pocket, sorted through his credit chits. Tossed one on the desk.

Spock watched this, feeling numb.

Admiral Justin smiled at Spock. "Little lesson in human behavior for you, Cadet."

Spock nodded, became even more calm and detached. "Yes, sir."

Vice Admiral Justin sipped his drink. Captain Pike tapped his fingers on the soft arm of his chair. Spock waited. Minutes past.

"Patience of a saint." Justin said this to no one in particular, then looked up at Spock in question, expectant.

"I was not aware that earth sub-deities were considered to have a high tolerance for protracted delay."

Justin smiled. "Come on, Chris, wouldn't you like to have this around?"

Pike rested his chin on his hand, his brows shifted lower. He sounded accusatory. "He's playing it up."

"Of course he is," Justin was smiling more. "It lets me rub your nose in it even more. Sure you don't want a drink? Your talk is over."

"Hell, sure."

Justin poured a second glass out, pushed it over to the corner beside the weapons case. Spock looked down at the floor.

"Dear Christopher Pike, so certain he knows what's what. Fame has gone to his head and pushed out his old humble, willingness to learn. Which will kill him and his entire crew if we let it take up residence there."

"May I ask a question, Admiral?" Spock said.

"Absolutely."

"Do you and the captain know each other well?"

"Not at all. I think this is the first time we've met."

Pike became thoughtful. Nodded.

Justin sounded soothing. "It's what happens when you are old hands at something like Starfleet, Cadet. Everyone whos the same are your people, and you just know them."

"Fascinating, sir."

"You'll get there, Cadet. How is Commander Kirk?"

"He departed on a mission."

"Good for him. Can you say what ship?"

"He is on the Hampton right now, sir. I'm afraid I cannot say more as I do not know the status of the mission with regard to its secrecy."

Pike lowered his drink suddenly. "But Kirk told YOU."

"No, sir. The commander of the Hampton, Graham, told me. During a debriefing as necessary background to said debriefing."

"Cadet Spock gets around, Chris." He watched Spock a bit, cradled his drink in his hand, waited. "At some point, are you going to ask to be dismissed?"

"Sir, I am not aware of the protocol for such a meeting. And even if I were cognizant of said protocol, I was informed at one minute and seventeen seconds into this meeting that it would not follow any protocol."

Justin smiled at Pike. "And we've only had him a few weeks. Imagine this in a few years." He looked up at Spock. "Indeed you were so informed, Cadet. But one thing before you are dismissed. Captain Pike needs to admit that your presence here at the Academy doesn't require any extra consideration." He turned pointedly to Pike.

"You devil. I . . . " He glanced up at Spock. "All right. But he's not very much like the Vulcans I've worked with. Tried to work with."

Justin slapped the top of his desk, sending an explosion of noise through the room. "Of course he's not. Last piece of your ignorance I'm rubbing your nose in, you old coot."

"I'm almost twenty years younger than you." He almost took a drink. "Sir."

"Act like it then. Don't malign my students without having any facts at hand. Like for instance the fact that this particular student is as human as he is Vulcan."

Pike again didn't get his drink to his mouth. "This one?"

"Yes."

Pike narrowed his gaze and stared at Spock. "Oh."

Justin looked up at Spock. "Our most famous captain of exploration is full of deadly assumptions, Cadet. And you are formally dismissed. We've tormented you enough."

"Yes, Admiral. May I state for the record, that I do attempt to strictly model my behavior on the Vulcan ideal despite my background."

Justin started to speak, stopped. He put his glass down. "It's not your lack of emotion or your unflappable demeanor that is being referred to. It's that you understand what's going on in the heads of those around you. Let's you work with others."

"I was not aware that I was different in that way, sir."

Justin's voice became gentle. "You are, Cadet."

Spock nodded, fell thoughtful. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." He turned to Pike. "Captain."

Spock encountered Grange in the corridor leading to the dormitories. He was conducting spot checks of uniforms and issuing demerits, something Spock had never seen him do.

"How'd it go?"

"Strange, sir."

"That I knew from the circumstances. Anything else you can say without getting into trouble saying it?"

"Captain Pike lost a bet to Vice Admiral Justin, sir."

"Ah. Ha ha. That kind of thing." Grange laughed. "Thought you were somehow in trouble, but couldn't figure what kind. Go on. I don't need you this evening. Get something useful done."

"Yes, sir. Good night."


	6. Correction

Chapter 6 - Correction

Overlander knotted her fuzziest bathrobe tight around herself and padded out of the bathroom. Zienn was sitting at the high counter, juice boxes open before him.

"Getting ready for a meld?" she asked. "Oh, that's right. Spock is coming this evening."

Zienn nodded.

She looked at the clock and slid onto the stool beside him. She tapped her mechanical fingers on the counter. "I wanted to talk to you." She smiled with a dark twist to her lips. "I know. Shouldn't need to, right?"

He turned fully to her, put his hands before himself, fingertips lightly pressed together. "Most thoughts intelligent beings have are too amorphous to interpret. I can gather meaning fully only when you are composing speech, or avoiding speech."

"Oh. Well, I better talk fast then, if I want the chance to say what I need to say."

She looked down at her hands. Her clear plastic arm stuck well out of the heavy robe sleeve. Hollow soft plastic, rigid metal, servo mount points concentrated at the wrist. It always seemed like she was seeing her mechanical arm for the first time all over again.

"I've been thinking for a while that I don't want to give everything up to Starfleet. It's already taken half of me." She looked at her robed knees. She still felt pleasantly steamy inside the terrycloth. "And I like this job. And for some reason, no one really wants to do this job of overseeing refits. It's seen as deeply subsidiary to actually taking the ships out." She exhaled. "But I wouldn't mind just sticking with it. Because no one wants to do it, the average commander doing it has a lot more say." She overlapped the lower part of the robe better, tried to keep the heat in.

"I'm thinking-" She frowned. "I'm not asking for anything long term from you, believe me. But I'm thinking." She looked him up and down, appreciating the material fact of him. "I'm thinking I'd like to have your kid."

Zienn didn't react. He kept considering her, blinking regularly.

She was used to this now. It was actually promising to get from him what might seem to be silent distant consideration. She said, "The odds aren't very high, according to the computer. But Vulcan's are damn reticent about this so there's not data like their should be." She reached for the juice, poured some into his glass and sipped from it. "Because it's so unlikely, I just feel like seeing what happens. I can have a planetside role and have a kid. That was the problem. I had to like this job first. Not feel grounded against my will. Make someone else miserable with me."

Zienn watched her set the glass back down empty. He tilted his head, said, "That plan would be well outside ordinary Vulcan traditions for mating. As I have been made to understand them. But my familiarity is low." He grew thoughtful. "I am certain that my parents would be quite pleased. All children are overtly welcome. Our race is not prolific."

"Overtly welcome?" She sipped the juice again, thought she should speak aloud, not wait for him to sense it. "What are your parents like?"

Zienn shook his head. "This is difficult. You and I have little shared understanding to begin from. And I sense you think somehow I should not have parents."

She laughed, lowered her head. "Stupid. Sorry. You seem like the type to have just come into being." She laughed again. "You've never mentioned them and I've been trying not to ask even though it would help me guess what you might think about this." She almost reached out, but didn't. Rested her hands on her lap. "What do you think of your parents? Forget what I don't know. Just talk about them."

He nodded primly. "They were flattered when I was chosen for the priesthood. Our family has never been like Spock's, but I suppose in its own way, in the way of the Southern culture of our world, our family perhaps imagines being so. Having high priests among the ranks certainly helps status, although it takes a toll on the already tenuous birth rate."

He paused, grew distant. "I was not with them long. My impression of their being pleased with my placement in the temple is the strongest thing in my memory, but that is perhaps an unfair assessment of them."

"Do you have siblings?"

"No."

"They'd probably be thrilled at the idea of offspring, then."

He said in a corrective tone, "Pleased."

She looked down to not smile too boldly. "And you?"

"I have never considered it. But now that I have, I do not object. If I had not encountered Spock again since he was young, I believe I would deny your suggestion. As it is, it is acceptable."

She looked down at the counter. "It was so touching watching Lady Amanda care for Spock. I want to be like that. The mother of something that special."

"I cannot guarantee the same outcome."

"You don't think your kid would be extraordinary?"

"I perhaps hope not, in fact."

She reached out and took his arm, massaged it. Let go again.

He said, "Spock and I are very similar, but I, perhaps, got the luck of the draw, as humans say. Or perhaps not. My frame of reference is badly distorted, my worldview extraordinary limited."

She wrapped her arms around her waist. "Spock will grow up. You don't think he's just going through two sets of difficult teenaged years at the same time?"

"Perhaps. I resist such a simple explanation, however."

"I didn't mean to be dismissive. Just saying I think a lot of it will get better on its own. Not that he doesn't deserve understanding."

"Maturity will most certainly aid him. He has responsibilities that outstrip his faculties. I intend to see him through it." He scrutinized her face. "And perhaps I see your intent at creating another of him."

"I wasn't quite that blunt."

"My phrasing is likely poor. I meant to say that I can understand wishing to help another like him through life." He turned away for a long minute. "I do not know yet what I intend to do. I must return to the temple in order to bring Spock there. I will decide during that time whether I wish to stay. Or for how long. I have choices I never accepted as choices because it is harder, having them."

He put his hands back in his lap, sat serenely. "As you stated. The odds are low. I will suffer the fate of such efforts. If you are welcoming of either outcome."

She slid forward off the stool and hugged him.

"I still find this an illogical gesture," he said with no emotion.

The door chimed.

"That must be Spock." She stepped back, straightened her bath robe. "Can you answer? No sense in embarrassing the poor boy. I'll be in the bedroom."

He nodded and went to the door.

Spock stood in the doorway, hands clasped before him.

"Come in, Spock," Zienn said in Standard.

Spock raised a brow and entered with a bow.

"Would you like some juice?"

Spock's stomach rumbled, he also continued in Standard. "I would. I have been neglecting eating in James's absence."

"Then you must definitely have some." He poured juice into a clean glass and held it out.

"Are we melding today?" Spock asked in Vulcan.

"I have not yet decided. But I do wish to speak to you about realms." He had also switched to Vulcan, but added in Standard, "Drink up."

They took up their usual position on the floor by the sliding glass doors. The sun streamed across under the clouds this evening, warm grays and whites.

Zienn knitted his fingers, pointed his index fingers outward. "You have an unexpected habit of forming ad hoc realms, a skill I would not expect you to have."

"My father stated this to me at one time. I still am uncertain to what this refers."

"You appear to use it to encompass James. To calm him with the sense of safe enclosure it brings. To be closer to him by being truly alone together. If you were to meld you would be far closer. From my observations you are using this as a substitute."

Spock fell still. "I am creating a realm when I do this? I have done this for many years."

"You are. You do seem well practiced at it. But you are untrained and there are hidden risks. I am requesting, as your tutor in this, that you refrain from forming another until I can train you. That will require the mind quiet of the temple. It will require many months."

Spock nodded, bent his head.

Zienn considered Spock with new eyes, saw him as he estimated Overlander saw him. As an extraordinary child, a forerunner, a model to be repeated.

Spock remained bowed. "Have I displeased you?"

"By no means. I was contemplating something I have never contemplated before."

Spock bowed his head again and waited.

"What would you like to learn today?" Zienn said.

"Is there any way we can begin my learning about realms? Perhaps in discussion."

"I am not certain that is most useful to you at this time."

Spock bent farther. "I am your student and will do as you request."

"I was considering assisting you with gaining a second level control of your body."

"As you direct me, I will try. I regret I am distracted today. Tomorrow James will participate in a landing party to Tantalus Colony."

"Is there danger?"

"He is assisting with transporting the Vulcan Militants to Vulcan from a Federation Penal Colony. So there is some danger from my old shipmates who may try and affect an escape." Spock's gaze grew strained. "I could have accompanied the mission. It would not have been wise, but it was possible. And now I wish I had, despite the illogic. It is that dissonance of my illogical wishes and my concerns about James that are distracting me."

"Let's work on those. You should be able to clear your mind from such emotional difficulty with little effort, with the right technique and practice." Zienn waved a finger in the air as if brushing something away. "Let me show you how I disassociate from concerns. You seem to learn well by example. Which is just as well, as that is what I prefer to offer rather than remembering my own stodgy training."

He raised his hand and Spock bowed his head.

Spock felt Zienn's concerns about Overlander, shied away from something he sensed was far too personal. Zienn shifted to showing Spock his concerns about his parents whom he had not contacted in many years, and his strain about doing so after so much silence. As a secluded high priest he was very nearly lost to them by the necessity of his training and early position. But as an exalted high priest, he had the freedom to communicate with them again, but never did so. The distance between them had grown too great to bridge.

He showed Spock this strain, then showed him how he detached that concern. Setting it free to drift, thinner and thinner, abandoning the issue deep in the memory, accessible, but not tied to emotion.

Spock spoke aloud. "But how do you resolve such dilemmas when you use such a method? I find I often do so by worrying over them in the background of my mind, in what I suspect is a wholly human manner."

The meld eased off. "I make them wait until I can meditate on them."

"I would have to meditate with higher regularity in that case."

"I expect you to do so when you are in training with me." This was spoken strictly.

"Please give me a schedule in that case."

"I would prefer not to, but if I must."

"Yes. Please."

Rather than annoyance, Spock felt a wash of affection from the other side of the meld, as if for a son. He sat with Zienn's fingers lightly on his temple and cheek, sensing something he never had before, and aching for it, and embarrassed in the wake of that reaction.

"You are deeply my responsibility," Zienn said. "I have chosen to suffer that responsibility for you fully, as part of my learning to suffer. Unless you object."

"I have no right to object."

The meld remained on the periphery of Spock's mind. Zienn said, "I am learning that to suffer one must not put aside every concern. When one is very good at that, one does not suffer."

"I expect not."

"I will show you another example of that putting aside and then try and walk you through exercises so that you may practice."

The meld deepened. Spock accepted the intrusion more easily this time.

* * *

Kirk's roommate on the Hampton was a broad man with fleshy arms that Kirk suspected housed significant muscle out of view. Lt. Nangana went about his day quietly, nodded with an official air when they crossed paths in the room.

Like the previous morning, Kirk woke at oh seven hundred and his roommate was already gone for the day. There was a ten hundred meeting, and then preparation for landing, checklists, final briefings.

Kirk had read nearly all of Starfleet's recent entries on the Tantalus Colony and the head of the rehabilitative facility, Dr. Tristan Adams. The man had been revolutionary in making humane the treatment of recidivist criminals across the Federation. Kirk had heard of him before now, he was widely known and widely spoken of in entirely glowing terms. According to the colony's history, Dr. Adams had founded the Tantalus Penal Facility to take in the remaining incurable for specialized attention. Humanitarian or not, famous or not, Kirk felt hot prickles at the thought of the absolute authority the man must have in such a position, remote from regular oversight.

Kirk had not spoken with Spock in over a day, and would likely not have a chance again until they had picked up the prisoners and were on route to Vulcan. It was the middle of the night SF time. Kirk sent a message ping to Spock.

A connection request came back and Spock's image stabilized on the screen. Spock's dorm room was dark behind him.

"Sorry, did I wake you?"

Spock's voice was rough and sleep laden, and wholly sexy. Every cell in Kirk's nerves seemed to reach out toward the screen.

"It is no matter. I expected your connection."

"I could have waited a few hours. But I was worried something else might get scheduled and I wouldn't have a chance."

Spock's face relaxed. "It truly is no issue, James. And I need to speak with you."

Kirk smiled. "Go ahead."

Spock sat up fully, looked just past the screen. "I regret that I was forced to admit I was on Wolfram Thesus V."

"That was long enough ago, it likely doesn't matter. What happened?"

Spock shook his head. In the dim light his face grew darker. "I cannot see things the way you do. I cannot read a situation to foresee the traps it contains." He shook his head additionally. "I do apologize and admit regret for this shortcoming of mine."

Spock's shoulders shifted as if he sighed. Kirk felt a wave of affection.

Spock said, "Captain Pike ordered me to tell him. I had no option but to comply."

"You met Captain Pike?" Kirk sat up, forward. "What's he like? Wait. Spock. Start at the beginning. What'd Pike say to you?"

"Firstly? He told me to stand down."

Kirk froze. "Spock, I've been gone three days, what are you doing?" Spock started to speak, but Kirk cut him off. "No, there's no excuses. Someone like Pike tells you something like that, you are the one in the wrong." Kirk rubbed his hair back. "Spock, start at the very beginning. Not that beginning. The beginning before that."

Spock explained about the senior cadets, the push ups.

Kirk held up a hand. The room's lights responded by coming up brighter. He rubbed his eye. "Spock. You need to learn to bend."

"You are implying that Cadet Jaek was in the right?"

Kirk rubbed his eye harder. "That's not the point. He outranks you. He wasn't telling you to do anything immoral or illegal. So he gets to tell you what to do. Understand?"

Spock's features pulled together. "I did as he instructed."

"In a sense. But you were also an ass." Kirk sat back. "I suspect that mouth of yours is what kept trouble at bay on Vulcan. You resort to it quickly."

Spock shook his head, but he said, "Perhaps."

Kirk put his hands down on the desk in front of him. "Spock. You're not an individual anymore in the same way you were. You are going to learn this the hard way or the easy way. But if you plan to stay, you have to learn this." He huffed. "You are part of an organization now. People above you. People below you, eventually people below you. You have to act like you are part of that. Better yet, make it a part of your nature."

Spock looked away, gaze distant.

Kirk said, "Maybe I've not been a very good example. Look around yourself more." Kirk raised his chin. "Your class with Chanel. That's full of seasoned officers."

Spock met Kirk's gaze through the screen again. "Indeed. The atmosphere is promising."

Kirk worked his lips, nodded. "You like it in that class? The maturity appeals to you, the camaraderie?"

"Yes."

Kirk made his voice go unyielding. "You haven't earned your place there."

Spock's voice fell quiet. "I see."

"There are no shortcuts, Spock."

Kirk watched Spock's thoughts churn.

"You are saying I need to be humbled. To earn this." Spock had an unexpectedly upbeat tone as he said this. As if he were working something out.

"If I have to say yes or no, I'll have to say yes. But it's more complicated than that. When you fit in, you become part of something larger. For some people, that is probably humbling. When you move up and are given a lot of responsibility, it's something else."

Spock nodded. "I understand."

"Do you? It would be really good if you did."

"It would be akin to an experienced person realizing they may yet have something to learn," Spock said with a methodical air. "That assumptions can be mistaken and compounding that by failing to accept the possibility of said mistake. Which is dangerous in a leader. And one may need one's nose rubbed in those mistaken assumptions by one of a superior rank to see said situation clearly. It is akin to that?"

Kirk pursed his lips. "Yeah."

"I do understand." Spock sounded easy going. "That is what Vice Admiral Justin did to Captain Pike."

Kirk paused. "In front of you?"

"Yes. I am curious James, if you would have understood the hidden intent of the meeting before getting trapped into answering questions you did not wish to answer." Spock waited as if expecting to be corrected. He continued at Kirk's nod. "After Captain Pike's talk, I was escorted to the vice admiral's office under orders. Captain Pike was present, there was a small amount of alcohol and they appeared relaxed. The admiral warned me this was not a standard protocol."

Kirk felt a cold trickle in the center of his gut.

"The admiral had a dark wooden box on the corner of the desk with a bioscanner on the latch. He asked me to open it and examine what was inside, if I wished to."

Kirk considered this. Shook his head.

"That does make me less critical of myself. There was a phaser inside the case."

Kirk raised his chin. "Now I think I know where this is going. And you picked it up."

"I wished to examine its construction."

"Of course you did."

"And as a result, Captain Pike had to pay the admiral one hundred credits."

"I don't like this, but I'm not surprised."

"Captain Pike also had to admit that my entry into Starfleet did not require special consideration."

Kirk worked his jaw side to side. "Admiral Justin made him admit that in front of you. No wonder he's not popular among the other Admirals. I take back what I said. Pike's certainly not always right and I'm sorry I said that."

Spock nodded.

"You're the future, Spock."

"I do not see that, but if you insist."

Kirk breathed in, sat straight. "We get a chance to talk and all I'm doing is correcting you."

"If I require it. It is logical to do so."

Kirk looked away this time. "You have a lot of time. And you're smart. You don't need this from me as well as others, especially not with the academy super already on your back."

"Despite the events I have described, the admiral was rather considerate of me."

"He was willing to bet on you. He put some pride at stake doing that. And he wanted you to know what was going on. He respected your right to know."

"Also he is more knowledgeable about Vulcan traditions than I would have expected."

"It's his job to understand cultures. He's got to keep that place running smoothly. And I'm glad he gave you a chance to see that this process of correction happens at all levels. I doubt he meant to do that. I think he was just hitting Pike harder."

"Captain Pike was quite pleased that I had bot fighting experience."

"I'd be pleased too as a commander. We lack that. It tends to be deadly to obtain."

Kirk gave Spock a soft smile. "What can I do for you as a friend before I sign off here?"

"You can take great care with my former commander and his associates so as to remain unharmed."

Kirk grew sober. "I intend to." They sat in silence. "I'll let you get back to your rest period. I should get to work. Read more background material if I can find it. Can't learn too much." He reached for the switch, looked down at the desk. "Sorry if I went too commander on you." He felt a wave of regret and wished he could clearly communicate it. In person he could touch Spock to do so effortlessly.

"James." Spock sounded amused, or maybe it was the signal. "This is who you are." He waited. "Do take care."

Kirk spoke softly. "I will."

* * *

A/N: Posting early because tomorrow is going to be distracting. Everyone take a deep breath and we'll all get through it.


	7. Inmates, Part 1

Chapter 7 - Inmates, Part 1

The USS Hampton's shuttle sank into the turbulent atmosphere of Tantalus V. Kirk sat in the copilot's seat beside Graham, who handled the controls like someone barely paying attention, but always on course. Lt. Nangana was in the back, overwhelming the small jump seat on the port side beside the hatch. His two security crewmembers and Nurse Noel, the Hampton's petite and rosy lipped psych expert, had the bench on the starboard side. They needed to transport nineteen prisoners and would do so in two waves using the cleared space in the middle of the shuttle.

Shuttle trips always felt tedious if Kirk wasn't at the controls. But he did not want to turn aft and make conversation. Nurse Noel kept expressing too much interest in him and if he looked busy at the controls she kept quiet.

A blip fluttered across the sensors, likely a scan. It returned, grew in strength.

"Commander Kirk," Noel said. "I'm still curious how you personally assess success, both yours and other's." She huffed a cute laugh. "It's a study of mine to better understand what drives fleet's best officers."

Kirk looked sidelong at Graham, hoping for an intervention. Graham stared at the nav display, forcing down a smile.

"I have a theory that it's almost entirely competitively driven," Noel said. "That those who succeed the most are those most aware of others around them succeeding. Do you agree?"

Kirk watched the scan flitting back and forth across the shuttle's sensors. He turned the copilot's seat a few degrees and looked over his shoulder. "Beyond having role models, or intentionally pitting groups against one another for simulations, I don't think competition factors into it. Hierarchies are about satisfying those below you."

Her delicate brow crinkled. "Below you? Don't you mean those above you?"

"No." Kirk glanced at Graham. "They can fend for themselves."

The proximity alarm began beeping, went steady, indicating they were approaching the force field. Graham put the controls into a rocking hover, awaited the penal facility's signal confirming they had dropped the shielding.

There was a long gap of silence and more scanning.

Graham looked aft over her shoulder at the others without speaking. She'd done this repeatedly early in the flight without hinting as to why. Kirk stared at her until she looked his way. She opened her mouth, but the panel chirped, confirming a window had been opened in the shielding. Graham dropped the shuttle through it. The altimeter wound down six hundred meters and the signal turned red again. Kirk imagined a giant door closing over the top of them.

Graham looked aft again. Had they been alone, Kirk would have asked what was up. As it was, he could not undermine her.

The planet surface grew craggy, grew detailed. They settled onto an artificially flattened spot in a rugged gray landscape, on a marked pad beside a circular utility building. The shuttle touched an aft corner, yawed, settled to the ground with a crunch.

Graham unhooked and stood up. She surveyed the team as they assembled in the open center of the shuttle.

"Noel, you're with me and Kirk. I tried to argue for bringing security in, but they insist on having only their own inside the facility. To avoid anyone aiding a breakout, apparently. Some of the prisoners here are legendary, Matumma Jina the Orion pirate, Lopdosic the Hermit, who caused the mass suicide on Farwest Colony."

Noel's head lifted suddenly in keen interest. Kirk was glad to see her attention diverted.

The shuttle door rocked open, bounced on the hinges in the wind. At least the building was a short dash away.

Graham leaned out of the shuttle and the wind blew her hair against her head. "That must be the top of the lift shaft." She turned back to Nangana. "I don't expect to be more than three hours. I don't think you can get a signal out, nor can you return to the Hampton unless the facility allows it. I guess my orders are if you don't hear from us in 12 hours, try your best to blast in. Got it?"

The security crewmembers fell still, brows furrowed. But Nangana nodded easily, crossed his great arms.

The three of them huddled under the overhang of the utility building, in the biting wind. Dr. Adams himself came up on the weathered communications screen. He was a coarse-skinned middle aged man with a friendly crinkle around his eyes.

"Commander Graham. It's a pleasure to have you here. I'm Dr. Adams. I apologize for what I'm sure is an inconvenience. I know how it is to have to leave key personnel behind, but I'm afraid we really can only allow two visitors at a time. We have to keep our little home here quiet for our residents. You do understand."

Kirk tightened his jaw. This was what Graham had kept to herself.

"Dr. Adams, I have to insist on three. I need a psych expert and I need a Vulcan expert. I don't have that combination in a single officer."

The wind continued to buffet them.

"It goes against my policy, Commander. And I will have to place additional restrictions on your movements. If you can accept that, I'll happily make an exception."

"Understood Dr. Adams," Graham said. She crossed her arms and ducked lower.

"Well, good then. Please don't take it personally, Commander, we get so few visitors and I really do appreciate seeing new faces, I really wish we could bring your whole crew down, but it's just not possible."

The lift doors opened. Graham gave Kirk a formal tip of her head and hurried inside. Noel minced in after her, showing off her nicely shaped calves. Kirk hoped they never did away with the skirt option to the duty uniform as he followed in last. The triple, hardened doors of the lift slid closed one after the other.

The lift sank like the bottom dropping out and the three of them grabbed for the railings. Kirk breathed out, shook his head. They continued down and down, shaft lights racing away upward.

"The hell," Graham said.

"Point four nine of a kilometer deep," Kirk said.

"My expert," Graham said with a mocking smile.

"Keeps me alive."

They looked at each other but said nothing. They were likely monitored. Kirk had made it clear in their meetings that he didn't trust anyone in a position like the one Adams was in and he sensed that Graham was willing to concede his point, at least superficially. Deep down she likely thought Kirk paranoid.

* * *

"These are our treatment areas."

Kirk lagged behind, looking inside each open suite. He didn't recognize any of the equipment. He tossed his head at Nurse Noel when Adams had his back turned, indicating she stick close and advise him while Graham kept Adams busy.

Noel joined Kirk, but seemed to pay at least as much attention to Kirk himself as to the rooms they passed.

They reached a common area done in bright colors. A tall woman with straight black hair stood in the the center of the room, staring straight ahead.

"This is Lethe, one of our success stories," Adams said. "She stayed on as a therapist. Lethe, these are our guests."

Lethe's voice had no inflection. "I am pleased to meet you."

Noel slid by Kirk to stand before her, peering up, and tried to strike up a conversation. A seemingly amused Adams sidled up beside her to intercede.

Kirk slid over to Graham, turned his back to Adams. He whispered, "Take the offer to stay for dinner."

Graham wrinkled her brow in confusion since there had been no such invitation. "I want to get out of here."

Kirk minutely shook his head, stepped away as if examining the art. This place was raising his hackles and he refused to leave until he knew exactly what was going on. Graham could sanction him later for speaking out of turn. He'd make it up to her somehow. Maybe it was the closed in smell unmasked by the air circulation, but something down here was setting him off.

"Dr. Adams," Graham said. "Can we see our prisoners?"

Adams smiled broadly. "Of course, of course. You'll forgive my delight at having visitors. I'm hoping you'll stay for dinner, actually."

Kirk turned. Graham opened her mouth, closed it. Frowned. Nodded. "I'll have to call my shuttle and warn them about the delay." She paused, gritted her teeth, but didn't glance at Kirk. "But we accept your kind offer."

"Excellent. And about your prisoners. You did see the report, right? We had quite a bit of trouble with them when they first arrived." He frowned, but his eyes crinkled as if he smiled. "Took us a while to sort out who to best house with whom. Can't have them alone unless we have no choice. That would be inhuman."

"We saw the report," Nurse Noel said kindly when there was a delay in Kirk or Graham responding.

Security joined them as they approached the cell blocks. Their boxy faces were almost as expressionless as Lethe's. Kirk tried to slow down, to not have their armed presence at his back, but they slowed down with him.

They stepped through a security interlock and into an area where the walls were carved from bare rock. It smelled vaguely of cave, and something animal and primitive. Nurse Noel peppered Dr. Adams with questions, obviously approving of his answers. Kirk expected, given his reputation, that he'd have the right answers.

They walked thirty meters along, passing doorways leading onto open suites with forcefield walls leading to cells. They stopped before a wide doorway with forcefield bars glowing in the opening and extra warning signs on the label beside the door.

"I have to ask for just one at a time in the residential cell area," Adams said.

Graham tilted her head. "Kirk."

Kirk followed Adams into a central room with security screened walls on three sides opening onto cells with Spartan bunks and facilities. A figure rose up and stepped up to the field on the left. Kirk turned and faced Zuram.

It took two blinks for Zuram's gaze to come in close from a thousand meters away. Unlike Lethe and the guards, his lack of expression held back a lot of deep impressions.

Another figure rose from meditating on the floor, came over to stand beside Zuram, at first pensive, then with squared shoulders.

"You're being moved," Kirk said. "Vulcan wants to take over your incarceration."

Zuram didn't respond. Kirk wondered if the force screen blocked sound.

"They've been like this," Adams said with more than a touch of sadness. "Can't get through to them."

Zuram's eyes slid to Adams. Kirk's impression of restrained violence grew stronger, as if a bomb might be ticking down to zero.

Adams sounded the tour guide. "There are nineteen here. We have two non ambulatory that are looked after by their comrades. We tried to keep them in medical, but we almost lost them doing that."

"Non ambulatory from what?" Kirk asked. He shouldn't have. It was in the report. Asking again implied he wanted to hear Adams explain it in person.

"As I said. We didn't learn right away who could be with whom." Adams sadly shook his head. "It's been better the last month. Quieter." The sweep of his gaze took in Zuram, moved on. Zuram seemed to collapse inward slightly, seemed to lose his foundation of hot strength.

Kirk pretended to look elsewhere. He paced the perimeter of the room, studying the others sitting on the floors, standing at the ends of the bunks, appearing to rest. Most of them didn't look at him.

"Shall we move on with the tour?" Kirk said.

Adams shrugged. Back in the corridor, Adams said, "What else would you like to see, Commander?"

Kirk said, "If you wouldn't mind. Some of the other prisoners."

Adams shrugged again. "Just one visitor at a time, if you wouldn't mind. We're not running a zoo. It's difficult, very difficult you understand, for our residents to be gawked at by strangers."

"Nurse Noel will accompany you, Doctor," Graham said.

Adams lifted his arm in invitation, then went down the corridor to the next suite off that block. As soon as they were out of sight, Kirk, ignoring the guards who had spread themselves out in the corridor, paced farther along as if impatient. They didn't shift.

Kirk paced back. The guards still didn't shift. "I recommend we get round one sent to the ship right away."

Graham crossed her arms, leaned on the wall. "You'd make a terrible first officer, Kirk."

"Did I phrase that wrong?"

"The words were fine. Your attitude is too much assuming command."

Kirk paced again, farther this time. The four security still seemed to think nothing of it. They stood rigid with their backs to the wall.

Kirk paced back, stared straight at Graham. "I'm doing the best I can," he said, sounding peeved.

Her brows went up, then her face relaxed.

She puffed up. "You need to do better. Much better. Or you can forget ever moving up."

Kirk paced angrily this time, farther. One of the security peeled off and followed. His heavy steps fell lazily on the stone floor behind Kirk. Kirk wondered how far he could push it. He held his shoulders hunched, feigning annoyed. He didn't know what he was looking for, just needed to see more than Adams wanted to show them.

"Sir," a voice said fifty meters farther along.

Kirk turned as if surprised, stared at the security member. "Yes?"

"You are strongly requested to remain near Dr. Adams." The guard stood with his hand on his double-barreled stun gun.

Kirk shrugged. Gave Graham a supposedly glaring look all the way back down the corridor. Strode slowly back, looking sideways into each suite. He glanced at Andorians, tall humanoids he didn't recognize the race of. A figure in red came to the security screen inside the suite on the left, threw himself at it, causing buzzing and a cry of agony.

Kirk stopped, backed up. The white haired man in the cell was doggedly stumbling back to his feet, wavering as if he might fall again into the force field. He met Kirk's gaze, opened his mouth and tried to speak. The security guard took Kirk by the arm and physically dragged him away.

Kirk was released beside Graham and the guard remained beside them, face empty.

Kirk rubbed his arm. Adams and Noel emerged, chatting amiably, laughing. They entered the suite across the corridor. Kirk didn't dare talk freely here. He stewed, thinking. Ten minutes later, Adams and Noel rejoined them.

"I'm quite satisfied, Commander," Nurse Noel said. "Everything seems well kept up, needs attended to as much as possible given the incurable nature of the residents."

"I'm pleased to hear that," Graham said. "Like you, Doctor, I have to fill in reports, keep people happy. You understand."

"Of course, Commander. Anything else you'd like to see? The physical plant gets inspected annually, but I can show you that. It is critical in an underground operation like ours. Almost like a spaceship down here."

"I'd like to see it," Kirk said. "You've piqued my interest."

"We should begin transferring prisoners to the ship," Graham said.

"Well, I have to see to that personally, given the unusual nature of the residents in question." Adams gestured at security. "You informed us that you can't take them in one wave. Let me advise my people on whom to take in the first round." He turned and spoke low to the guards, gestured.

Graham pulled out her communicator, but did not get a connection to the shuttle.

Adams turned. "Oh, that won't work in this area. You'll have to wait until we're near the repeater in the common area. My people will get the first set of seven ready to go and we can retreat to the offices to coordinate with your shuttle."

They followed Adams.

"Just seven?" Kirk said. "We have nineteen total to transfer."

"I assure you, this is the right set to go at one time, Commander." He smiled, broad and friendly. "Trust me, we've learned this the hard way."

Kirk looked for a chance to pull Graham aside, but it did not occur. Arrangements were made, orders given. Kirk was to take the prisoners back to the Hampton and return in the shuttle for the next round. Kirk followed colony security up in the lift with seven heavily secured Vulcans, arms bound behind their backs, feet electronically tethered so that any rapid movement would pull their legs together. Lt. Nangana and his team met them at ground level, phasers drawn.

The prisoners were herded to the shuttle, well guarded. Kirk tapped Nangana on the arm and gestured for him to step around the side of the shuttle nacelle while the others arranged the prisoners in the shuttle. The wind felt like a buffer against being overheard.

"You can pilot, I hope?" Kirk said.

"I can sir. I certainly don't usually. Is that Commander Graham's orders?"

Kirk spoke fast. "Not exactly. I couldn't coordinate with her without being overheard. I have a very bad feeling about things and I'm not leaving your commander alone down there. If you take the shuttle, I don't have to. Fair enough?"

Nangana stretched his long mouth farther, until it curled at the corners. "Yes, sir. We'll return as soon as possible." He spoke right into Kirk's ear. "With more firepower this time."

Kirk nodded, gestured that they should return and oversee with the loading. The eyes of the Vulcan prisoners were bright, simmering with resentment. Security attached their individual tethers to the cargo mounts in the shuttle deck. Kirk watched them check the integrity of each of the tethers with a hard tug, and with a nod, seal the hatch. The shuttle rose up. Kirk watched the speck of the shuttle recede, uncaring that colony security was waiting for him in the open lift.

Back down in the penal colony, Kirk found Graham with a drink in her hand that she didn't appear to be drinking. Noel and Adams were deep in a discussion about hallucinatory rewrite therapy. Graham stared at Kirk, then looked away, jaw tightening. He could see her expression cycle through heated anger, then into annoyed acceptance of his unilateral change in orders.

Kirk tilted his head indicating a piece of art on the wall. She joined him in front of it.

He whispered, "Talk while I talk to cover for me."

Graham looked at the painting, began comparing it in silly terms to the work of the crazy artist she roomed with before the academy. Kirk whispered, "During my excursion earlier I saw one of the inmates throw himself against a security field, but it wasn't an ordinary inmate. I recognized him from the colony records. it was Dr. Van Gelder. I'm sure of it. He's supposed to be Adams' assistant, not an inmate."

"Want me to ask?" Graham said.

Kirk shook his head, waited for her to start telling him about the time this roommate's friend flew his hoverscooter into the apartment window, ten floors up.

Kirk said, "I don't want to tip our hand with Adams. He always has a good excuse for everything and will for this too."

Dr. Adams' booming voice said, "Join us, Commanders. Have a drink, Commander Kirk. Please. I don't want to be anything but a gracious host given how rare it is."

* * *

A/N: I've joined tumblr, although I know almost nothing about using it yet. karajstorm if anyone else is on there.


	8. Inmates, Part 2

Chapter 8 - Inmates, Part 2

The Leadership class discussion did not vary enough from the pre-class materials to hold Spock's attention. Spock occupied his spare capacity by plotting out the best order to install the remaining sensors in the Apollo's engine bay. One of the existing sensors had been sending out readings on the edge of spec compared to the others. There would be a procedure for reporting this, and documention for replacing it. He pulled up those rules while the discussion went on between the instructor and the students in the rows closest to the front.

Hully's messages to Spock regarding his project came up in the sidebar of his padd's screen. Her usual, teasing him for his status as a cadet interspersed with encouragement to do well. He wondered if this behavior was typical. Spock would ask Lt. Grange that evening when he saw him.

Lt. Grange had grown quieter around Spock, more formal and less coarse when he did speak. Spock assumed that Hully's behavior was more in line with what Kirk expected of Spock's enculturation experience than Grange's was, as offensive to Spock's sense of logic as that conclusion was.

The instructor was clarifying methods of group ambition formation. Spock wondered what Kirk was doing just then. By the rough schedule Kirk had been allowed to share, he should be transporting prisoners at this time. Since Commander Graham's debriefing of him, Spock had been thinking more about his former shipmates, thinking about how violent they were capable of being when it suited them. Acting in a manner disconnected from the values Spock thought immutable for his people. If any of them harmed Kirk on this mission, it would be Spock's responsibility for having placed him there in full knowledge of their nature.

And painfully fitting. Certainly the others Spock had been forced to stand by and watch be harmed also had lovers, family, beings whose lives were irrevocably altered by said violence. Waiting for word from Kirk that he was back aboard the Hampton and they were making way to Vulcan made Spock feel sullied, deserving, perhaps, of this potential pain.

Spock closed his eyes for a count of ten. This romanticism was a human weakness and it served no useful purpose. But at the moment, Spock had little other purpose. Despite assignments, lectures, duties, assurances he had made to himself about his plans for the future, his pleasure at being there at the Academy, Spock felt adrift. Too much of himself was elsewhere, out of his direct control.

And no amount of logic was capable of recalling it.

* * *

Lethe carried in a tray of small bites of fabricated food and placed them on a side cabinet. Kirk watched her flat expression pass him one way, then the other. He watched the door long after, avoiding Adams' narrowed gaze.

They ate a little. They were encouraged to refill drinks they had only pretended to sip.

Adams was on drink three before he smiled at Kirk and said, "Commander, I'm quite certain I overheard your explicit orders to pilot your shuttle up to your ship. Did I not?"

Kirk gave a casual wry smile. "The shuttle was quite full without me, Doctor. Lt. Nangana is a worthy shuttle pilot, and the prisoners were well tethered by your guards."

Adams put on a concerned face. "Your shuttle will be even fuller for the second round."

Kirk looked to Graham. "It's possible we'll need to make two more runs. But that's the Commander's decision. I'm just an advisor." Adams' face lost all humor. Kirk pretended he didn't think this noteworthy, raised his glass to him, said, "More time to socialize. Right, Doctor?"

Adam's smiled again, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Well, we have more than eight hours remaining before a second shuttle trip. We should get that facility tour out of the way. If you are still interested, that is."

Kirk put his drink down beside the barely touched food tray.

"Would you be so good as to accompany us, Nurse Noel?" Adams put out an elbow in invitation to escort her.

Noel took Adams' arm with just her fingertips. "Well, not much else to do, it would seem."

They passed through double utility doors into a long parallel tunnel lined with equipment racks. Piping and conduits ran overhead, forked off into the rock walls. Kirk took it all in, memorizing the layout. He stalled as much as possible and walked all the way to the end, forcing Adams to follow. He asked questions about air movement and purification, power grids, and waste treatment, questions he could intelligently follow-up on due to being recently close to Spock's studies in ship design.

Adams interrupted Kirk's question about failsafes to say to Graham, "You always let the people under you do all the talking, Commander?"

Graham lifted her chin. "He's here as my expert."

Kirk couldn't judge if she was annoyed or just bored.

"You can't be taking an interest in the minutia, Mr. Kirk," Adams said. "Not a man of action like yourself. And I can tell you are a man of action."

Kirk crossed his arms. "What makes you assume I'm a man of action, Doctor?"

Adams laughed. "Everything about you." He held out a hand to invite them to step out of the power distribution section. "Your area is spaceships, Kirk. Battles. Risky exploration. The intelligent mind is my area of expertise. That's how I know. There is no reason, either emotional or egotistical, for you to care about waste recovery, or switching, or backups and power phases."

Noel sped up to walk beside Kirk, looked up at him from under her dark lashes. "Commander Kirk is a not like most others, Doctor. His motives seem to stem from a wellspring others do not possess."

Kirk rubbed his hands together. Considered her. "And what wellspring would that be?"

She tilted her head. "I don't know yet. I do continue to wonder."

Adams shook his head as he led the way out of the utility corridor and back into the reception area. The guards flanking the doors came to attention. There were pairs of them at every door now.

Adams stepped up beside Noel, pulled her back a step and said in her ear. "Well, my dear, we don't need to wonder, do we?" He held her arm harder, distorting the flesh of her muscles. "Every man has a breaking point, and all you have to do is lead them to it, then push them past it, and then you can learn all there is to know about them."

Adams smiled.

Kirk spun without looking and grabbed the guard approaching from behind by the arm, stamped his foot on the man's shin while making a grab for his stun gun. He fumbled the weapon to aim it, shook off the guard's hold and slid sideways, keeping his back to the wall. Graham had the other guard in a choke hold. Kirk flinched before the move, knowing it was coming. The guard ducked, flipped the much lighter Graham over his head in Adams' direction. She curled to avoid landing flat on her back, and tumbled over a full turn onto her knees.

Adams grabbed her by the hair, pointed a palm-sized weapon at her temple.

"The stunner, Commander," Adams said pleasantly to Kirk. "Drop it."

Kirk watched Graham's chest heave. She bit her lips. Adams twisted his hold on her hair and her eyes squinted.

Noel put her fingers on Adams' arm. "Doctor? What are you doing?"

"Just taking care of my facility, as I always do, Nurse. This place is my responsibility." He kept his eyes on Kirk. "You want to test me, Mr. Kirk? You think I won't do it?"

Kirk lowered the stun gun, dropped it to the floor. Four additional guards stormed in, two held raised net guns.

"Doctor Adams," Noel said. "Doctor Adams, I can help you. If you'll let me."

"I could use an assistant. If that's the sort of help you are offering. My last assistant got into a bit of trouble. . . . Experimenting on himself. Most unfortunate." He let go of Graham's hair, stepped back, pulling Noel with him.

Graham jumped to her feet, stood at fighting ready, hair mussed in a way that accentuated her anger. "Don't do anything you'll regret, Doctor," Graham said.

"Oh, Commander. I am meticulously avoiding regret with these actions. I assure you." Adams gestured with the little phaser pistol he held. "Put them in with their friends. That will soften them up in preparation." He turned to Noel on his arm. "Until I work out how best to deal with them both." He withdrew his arm from Noel's grip and put it around her shoulders. "I think you'll find this very interesting. I think you like peeking into people's heads just as much as I do."

Noel took hold of Adams's hand on her shoulder and held it away from herself, but left his arm in place. "I do find the human mind to be fascinating." She paused, smiled. "Especially the unusual ones."

A hand hauled sideways on Kirk's upper arm and he stumbled, put a hand down on the floor to keep his feet. He used that momentum to lunge at the midriff of the guard in front of him and was struck in the center of his back from behind. The floor came up fast, struck his chest full on.

Hands dragged Kirk back up before he could breathe properly. They towed him into the first stage of the security interlock, feet dragging, heating up. Two guards pushed Graham ahead of the group at stunner point. The interlock doors cycled. Kirk toed his feet under him, took his own weight, and shook off his guards' hold. Graham stood with her arms crossed, glowering at the pair flanking her.

"You're going to be prosecuted for this," she said. "You know that. You'll be one of these inmates before it's over."

A guard shoved her toward the still opening second door of the interlock, forcing her to put her hands up to save her face.

They were marched into the long cell block. The scent of desperation enveloped them. The guards halted at the doorway with the extra forcefield bars. Graham glanced desperately at Kirk, took a step back, right into a guard's hold. "What are you doing with us?"

They shoved her inside. Kirk wanted his entrance to have some dignity, so he strode in under his own power, chin high.

"Away from the field," a guard growled at the Vulcans. The ten guards lined up so every stun gun had a target.

Zuram gestured for those behind him to step back. Two others copied the gesture. Everyone shuffled back to the rear wall, postures brooding.

Kirk's communicator was taken and he was shoved inside first, had to catch himself on the post of a bunk bed. Graham ran into his back. The security field sizzled back into place.

The guards swung their stun guns around, checked the room, strode out. The forcefield bars energized on the outer door. The sound of heavy boots on stone retreated.

* * *

A/N: Just FYI, This is a reuse of the setup in the TOS episode Dagger of the Mind. In case it seems familiar.


	9. Inmates, Part 3

Chapter 9 - Inmates, Part 3

Graham had hold of the back of Kirk's uniform tunic, was pulling hard enough to cut into Kirk's neck. Kirk reached around behind him to take hold of Graham's arm. Her alert and calculating gaze covered each of the Vulcan faces in the cell. Zuram stepped closer. He had a slight wrinkle in the middle of his brow, a hint of curiosity, maybe.

"Not quite according to plan," Kirk said in Vulcan.

An older Vulcan stood up from a lower bunk at the back of the cell and came up as well. He stood with hands at his sides, but his movement made Graham's hold tighten again.

Kirk turned and pulled his uniform out of Graham's fingers, held onto her arm.

"What's the matter?" Kirk said.

She glared at him, straightened. "What do you mean asking me what the hell's the matter?"

"That's what I'm asking."

She put her hands at her sides, balled into fists. Her head tilted as if she were considering reprimanding him. She shook her head and stared at Zuram instead with a look of challenge.

Kirk surveyed the room. The faces were wan, drained. The prisoners stood apart from each other, heads turned away, but sideways gazes on the newcomers.

A younger adult male was crouched at the foot of one of the bunks, clinging to the post of it, rocking faintly.

Kirk stepped over, crouched before him. The young male didn't acknowledge Kirk was there. Zuram stepped up beside, loomed over Kirk.

"What happened to him?" Kirk asked in Vulcan.

"They came for him." Zuram struggled to say more, face working. "Too many times."

Kirk bent lower still to look into the young male's hidden face. The figure shivered, chewed his lips. Kirk looked up. Zuram's gaze was a thousand meters away.

"They came for you too," Kirk said.

Zuram's head rocked something like a nod.

"What happens when they take you away?"

Zuram opened his mouth. His head twitched.

"You can't say. I see that. It's okay. I get the idea." Kirk rose to his feet, paced along the forcefield.

Graham followed beside him, hands pumping as if she was striding fast a long way. "What'd you say to them?"

Kirk stopped. The situation had driven him off into his own strategic thoughts without regard to reporting to a superior. "He said someone comes and takes them away and they come back like that. When I ask for details he hits some kind of punishment block in his mind and can't speak."

She stood straighter, looked around the faces that continued to track them. "Wonderful." She relaxed finally, put her hands at her sides, relaxed. "We need options besides waiting for them to take the two of us away as well."

"Do you have any ideas, sir?" Kirk said, finding a teasing voice.

"Does anything shake you?" Graham asked. "Anything?" She gestured. "Look where we are. You're enjoying yourself."

"I'm not enjoying this. The Federation mistreated these beings. That's on us. We're complicit."

She lowered her voice. "They aren't exactly undeserving."

Kirk turned on her. "We've taken their liberty already." He wanted to pace, to throw his arms. He forced calm on himself knowing it wouldn't help to get emotionally distracted by this discussion. "We're not at war anymore, Commander, nor in battle. How we treat the most vulnerable defines us, I don't care who they started out as. This is us and only us that's at stake here. Who we are."

"Remind me again to complain about you. Officially."

Kirk hunched, paced the forcefield wall again, turned at the far corner post and stood there, surveying the entire cell.

Kirk said, "Commander Graham, I'll happily sit for a review panel for insubordination. Because as it looks right now. That would be a luxury."

Graham stared at him, mouth pinched. She jerked when Zuram stepped up to her, brow again wrinkled with something like curiosity. Kirk crossed his arms, leaned on the post beside where the force field emerged. The field generator made his thigh hum with energy.

Zuram looked Graham over. She took a small step back.

"You command him?" Zuram asked her in Standard.

"Kirk. Yeah. He's under me at the moment. As much as that's possible with him."

He tilted his head. "You are scared."

She swallowed hard. Pushed back her shoulders. "I've had braver moments than this one. Yes. This caught me off guard. I'm a planner. Once I have a plan, I do pretty well."

Zuram shook his head, looked her over in confusion. He fell distant, pulled himself to the present again with apparent effort. He spoke in Vulcan this time, haltingly.

"What'd he say?" Graham asked over her shoulder.

Kirk raised his chin. "He says he doesn't want your body as you seem to think. If he did anything at all, he'd cleanly break your neck. You wouldn't feel it."

Graham turned slowly to Kirk, fury in every line of her. She leaned toward Kirk like a cat, brows low. "The hell he said that."

Kirk tilted his head. "That's what he said, Commander." Kirk sighed. "I couldn't possibly make that up. And I wouldn't do so, in any event." Kirk shifted to lean on his other hip against the wall, farther from the generator. "I honestly think he was trying to make you feel better."

Graham turned back to Zuram, stepped sideways away from him in Kirk's direction. But halted rather than retreat more. "Well, that's reassuring, in a way. That he might be trying, that is." She took another step, gaze hardening, becoming normal.

Kirk's lips crooked into a smile. "Commander Graham, sir. Now that we've come to a peaceful understanding with our roommates, can I humbly suggest we find a way out of this?"

"Damn straight we can." She stalked to his end of the cell and leaned on the wall beside him, arms crossed. She peered around their cage thoughtfully. "I need a plan. Any plan."

Kirk copied her, studied the emitters, the force field on the outer door. He wasn't getting any grand ideas, and he was trying not to rely on Nurse Noel, but she likely was their main hope. Even with more firepower, the shuttle wasn't going to make its way inside. At best they would make the lift inoperable for a time, which was the main way out. Although Kirk had seen indications of an escape tunnel on various facility labels during the tour, but not a map as to where that might be.

"Ideas?" Graham whispered.

"No."

Zuram stood beside the bunk bed staring down at the young adult male who had bent his head farther over, nearly upside down. Kirk pushed off the wall and approached.

"You can't help him?" Kirk asked.

"None of us have the Healer skill," Zuram said. "The body cannot live without the mind. The body rapidly becomes just as disarrayed, until it fails."

Kirk looked away.

Hours passed but there was no clock to know for certain. Kirk sat on the edge of a spare bunk. Graham sat at the end, leaning against the wall behind her, knees bent, jump boots on the bedcovers.

"You're supposed to be good at this," Graham said.

"You know Noel better than me. Thoughts?"

"Noel is an odd bird. I'm hopeful," she added in a very low voice.

Graham rubbed her brow. "What will they do when the shuttle returns? What's their game? They have to kill us don't they? Is that the plan, fake an accident with the shuttle?"

Kirk turned to Zuram. "Commander. Your associates that have been offloaded already. Were they ever taken away like yourself and the boy?"

"No."

"There's your answer, Commander Graham. I think you've nailed their plan."

"Have I?"

"Adams can't let any of these Vulcans get to Vulcan. A meld will give Adams away. He let the others go, since they are much less of a liability and it makes an accident seem more like one. We aren't going to be so lucky."

She put her arms around her knees. "And knowing this helps us. It has to."

"We know we have to fight like hell, sir, even if the odds look terrible."

"Agreed, Commander. You have my permission to fight like hell."

Kirk looked down at the dents her boots were leaving in the bed surface. He said, "Sorry I'm such an ass, sir. I'm slow to adapt to being under someone again. I do pretty well going the other way."

She snorted. "I have the same problem. I'm trying to not overreact to your poor performance because of that. You are good practice for not being a hypocrite, Kirk. I'll give you that."

Kirk looked up at her, smiled faintly. "I appreciate your candor, Commander. I'll try harder. Especially since it's clear you deserve it."

"I hadn't already earned it?"

"You did. I just need to be reminded. Maybe more than once. Helps me find my place." Kirk tugged on the bedcover to straighten out the dents. "For what it's worth, I'd have have switched places with you in that access tube on the Potemkin if there had been anyway to arrange to."

"That's because you're an egotistical idiot."

Kirk considered that a good long while. "I prefer to assume that I'm just being fair. I have to be willing to do anything I'd order another to do."

"I have to work a bit to think that way. Some people are clearly better at some things than others. Some people deserve some outcomes more than others."

Kirk shook his head. "We differ on that."

"I noticed."

Guards clomped by outside the cell suite as they had several times an hour. This time the footsteps stopped and the outer force field bars cut out. Two guards stepped in and one guard stayed outside, re-engaged the outer security. They'd been lax about that when they were brought in. Kirk frowned to see them following procedure this time.

The guards stood before the security field, stun guns raised. "At the wall."

The Vulcans arranged themselves. The young male clinging to the bunk post didn't respond, but he was close to the back wall already. Zuram stood over him, defiant looking, even though he couldn't hold his fierce gaze on any one spot for long.

The guard pointed at Kirk. "You. Here." He indicated a spot just inside the force field.

Kirk approached, keen for a chance to perpetrate violence in the name of escape. The field came down. Kirk was grabbed up and hauled out and the field rose again. The larger of the guards twisted Kirk's wrist and screwed it up his back. Kirk rose to his toes to get the tearing strain off his shoulder.

They walked Kirk out to the corridor and pushed him into the opposite wall, hard. His jaw and shoulder smacked the rough stone making his bones ring. He was released to slide to the floor, stunned.

He rubbed his jaw, looked up into the business end of three stun guns.

"Up."

Kirk rose up, pretending difficulty, lunged, and was shoved aside with the force of his own movement, into the wall beside the force bars. His head smashed his hand into the wall, which he'd put out to protect it. His head rang with the blow and his hand smarted enough to feel broken. He was dealing with professionals with a lot more practice in handling wildly violent people than Kirk was willing to accept in his desire for escape.

They grabbed him up and dragged him, feet scraping. He struggled to get his feet under him to relieve the strain on his arms. He was frog marched to the interlock and held there, suspended on his aching shoulders while the doors slid open.

The doors cycled. By the grip on his wrists behind his back, Kirk was forced into the reception area.

"Ah, Commander Kirk," Adams said, sounding as friendly as ever.

Kirk looked around for Noel. "Where's our nurse?"

"Oh, she's all right. She'll join us. Come."

Kirk's strained body was marched into a treatment room housing a bulky chair and a windowed control panel. He was forced back into the chair but not strapped down. A round glass fixture was mounted at eye level on the wall opposite him.

The guards took up a position beside the windowed partition, stun guns drawn. Kirk calculated poor odds of overcoming them, and in defiance, relaxed back into the chair.

"What are you going to do?" Kirk asked, trying not to sound too mocking since it would be clear his anger was the byproduct of alarm.

Adams chuckled. "I've already done some of it, James Kirk."

Kirk sat forward. The guards had retreated and he hadn't noticed. They now stood outside in the corridor. Kirk looked at the fixture in front of him, at the bumpy glass and ringed pattern lit from behind He looked down at the chair, which was ordinary beyond being indestructible.

"This isn't moral or ethical, Doctor. Whatever you are doing."

"Oh. I think I have a pretty good hold on ethics. I've turned countless hopelessly violent beings into quiescent productive drones. Society considers that highly ethical.

Kirk blinked, took hold of the chair arms with the intent to get up. He had the strangest sense that time had passed. He leaned forward. He came to awareness having fallen onto his own legs.

Kirk jerked upward. "What does this device do?" He looked through the control window. Noel was there now, eyes wide. Kirk's heart began throbbing, ratcheting up his alarm. "What is this?"

"Commander?" Noel said into the microphone, voice uncertain.

"Noel. Why?" Kirk felt a rush of desire, a font gushing up from his insides. "Helen, isn't it? I love you, what are you doing there so close to him?"

Kirk pushed out of the chair. He had to get to her, take her aside into his arms.

"Don't get up," Noel came around the partition shielding the controls, hands up.

Kirk rushed her, put her up against the side of the partition, their bodies full length pressed together. He had her lips inside his own, took possession of her mouth, would take possession of more as soon as they were alone.

Kirk felt Noel's fingers digging painfully into his arms, into the crux of his elbows. Confused he pulled back. "What's wrong?"

"You love me?" Noel grew strict sounding. "You think you love me?"

Kirk felt an awkward gap broaden in the center of his mind. He couldn't put the past and the present together correctly, but he heard himself say with full honesty, "I always have." He tried to stroke her face, but she grabbed his hand.

"So, what do you think, Nurse?" Adams said. He was leaning on the control panel, lips cocked into a smile.

"I'm sure I don't like this," Noel said. She put more pressure on the crux of Kirk's elbows. Kirk released her, fought against feeling distraught by her rejection.

"Why don't you love me?" Kirk asked.

"Sit in the chair, Commander," Noel urged. "If you love me, sit in the chair again." She pushed him backwards even though he resisted. She turned to Adams. "You'll put him back, right?"

Kirk relented because she wished it. He sat on the corner of the seat, staying as close to her as he could. He lifted an arm out to her, needing her to understand everything.

"Eli," Adams said to a staff member behind him. "Grab her."

Kirk saw a man in orderly blues come up behind Noel. Kirk lunged, but something knocked his senses away. He teetered, back arched, emptied of everything. He felt his body bending, arching backwards, slowly, slowly. He was going to fall and couldn't stop it. A frantic sense of nothing overcame him. He ached for something, anything.

Adams's voice penetrated his panic. Soothing, reassuring him that he was stronger than the others. That this was force eight which had reduced others to pleading and tears.

Kirk felt the chair arm against his back, felt it stab painfully into the soft tissue alongside his spine, felt his knees slowly bend farther, farther. He heard himself screaming, the echoes of it tried to fill up the space inside him that was being hollowed out wider and wider, but it failed to. He longed for the voice again, didn't care what it told him.

* * *

Kirk woke up with a mixed hot and cold wet puddle around his cheek and mouth. He lifted his head, dropped it again. The light hurt his eyes.

"James?"

A hand fell on Kirk's back.

"James? What happened to you?"

Kirk cracked his eyes open again. He was on a bunk in the cell. Graham was sitting on the bunk, leaning over him. He had drooled a pool under his own face and it stringily stuck to his lips. Horror stiffened every sinew in his limbs, prickled across his front where it came in contact with the bed. He whimpered, it was the best truth he could speak.

Graham's hand gripped his shoulder. "Oh hell."

Kirk closed his eyes, rested his head a little away from the puddle. He wanted to cease to be. But he didn't know how to say that.

Fingers slipped inside the hem of his tunic, stroked lightly over the skin of his lower back. It was a sensitive spot, distracting, and it helped more than it should have.

Kirk moaned, converted it into a grunt to save face. He put a hand under his head, his bruised hand. He flinched from the pain, which owned him for many moments until it faded to bearable. He rested his head on his forearm, contemplated the corner of the bunk, the bland color of the floor beyond.

"James," Graham said. "Commander Kirk, I'm talking to you. Can I get you to respond?"

Kirk nodded by rocking his chin on his arm. His neck ached abominably, but he managed to roll over, to sit up. If he remained hunched he avoided hitting his head on the upper bunk. But he liked the feeling of enclosure and didn't plan to stand up.

He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Zuram was standing three meters behind Graham, watching. Kirk dropped his arm.

"Can you talk?" Graham asked, growing more commanding.

Kirk tried. "Yes."

"Report."

Kirk was too aware of his own breathing, his aching body. "Adams has some kind of a device that makes your mind so empty that you long for nothing more than his voice to fill you up." He squinted, rubbed his eyes. "On low power I don't think you can even tell it's activated. He turned it up to eight, at least. Said that was higher than normal. Seemed to just want to know how much I could take."

"Did you see Noel?"

A jolt jerked Kirk forward. "Yes. She was . . . " Kirk halted, tried to sort out his feelings. "She was with him, but not entirely cooperating." He swallowed hard, felt desire rising up in himself at the thought of her. Clearly he'd been programmed to love her, but knowing that didn't stop the emotion.

Graham sat straight. "Shuttle should be returning in two hours, by my estimate. How do you think they'll rig an accident? Seems like it's got to look like one or the investigation will sink them."

"Programming you or me to make a pilot error on the way back. That's what I'd do."

"You think you were programmed?"

"I don't know. I don't have any trouble talking about what happened. Unlike our companions here." Kirk wrapped his arms around himself. "Maybe he's not finished yet. He was showing off to Noel."

Graham sighed, put her hands in her lap, glanced around the floor behind her as if checking how close others were standing. "Funny to be more at risk from the good doctor than this lot."

"That's an easy one," Kirk said. "They don't have any power. And Adams doesn't have any checks on his. He's too well-known for doing a few notable things, so he's above suspicion."

Kirk hunched over, rubbed his head, tried to force himself to feel normal again.

"Rest more," Graham said, standing up. "I'll keep an eye on things."

Kirk pulled the thin, spongy pillow closer, rested back staring up at the bunk above him. His mind resisted focussing on anything even though they badly needed a plan.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor. Kirk's arms and chest jerked. The footsteps faded as they moved on. Kirk bundled the pillow up around his ears until the hammering of his heart slowed. He opened his eyes. Graham was standing beside the bunk again, looking down. Kirk curled to sit up, swung his feet to the floor. He had to be ready. When they came for Graham they had to put up the fight of all fights.


	10. Inmates, Part 4

Chapter 10 - Inmates, Part 4

The prison corridor had been silent for at least half an hour. Kirk sat, leaning sideways against the bunk bed post, straining to hear any small sound, any sound of footsteps approaching. He felt empty, had to focus on the dread to stay in the present.

Graham paced, one step every two seconds, marking time. She was back in her element again, moving like a predator. Kirk reminded himself that he'd warned Lt. Nangana, the Hampton's security chief. Any oddness in his or Graham's behavior could lead to action on his part, just out of an excess of care. Could. The shuttle was due in less than two hours. Dr. Adams would have to come for them soon.

Kirk rubbed his neck, forced down the undue alarm filling his core at the idea of being in the treatment room again, yearning for Adams's voice to fill the aching void the machine opened up. He exhaled, long and slow, moved through his memories. The only gap was his sudden overwhelming desire for Nurse Noel, which had eased with her lack of presence. Kirk worried what he would do when he saw her again. His primary duty was to Graham, and he might fall down on that, reacting to Noel's conditions instead. Maybe that was somehow Adams's plan.

Graham paced back, still perfectly marking time. Kirk found it soothing enough he wanted to close his eyes. The lights in the cell, in the entire suite, failed without a sound. The enclosing darkness was punctuated by the glow of the forcefield emitters at the posts beside each cell. The faces in the suite were lit from below, stark and eerie.

Kirk stood and went to the field, walked along to see into the outside corridor which was lit only by crimson emergency lights barely revealing the corridor's details. Shouting echoed down the corridor. The other inmates expressing dismay, horror and celebration at the same time, replacing light with noise. Adams had said everything always needed to be the same, day to day, minute to minute, to keep them calm.

Kirk looked around for anything that could be a weapon. Of course there was nothing. He leaned as close to the field as he dared, let it sizzle his hair. They were safe in here, but he didn't want to be in here.

"What do you make of this, sir?" Kirk asked Graham.

She came up beside him. "I'll take anything."

Kirk looked around at their cell mates. At least some of them had to be engineers. "How long before the emitters fail, do you think?"

Zuram looked to the oldest of his crew who simply stared at Kirk in return.

Kirk said, "Has this happened before?"

Heads shook.

"Let's hope it's Noel's doing," Graham said.

The shouting and a disconcerting throaty gurgling filtered into their cell, surging louder in a chorus before dipping in volume for a time.

Graham swore. "Based on the sounds out there, some cell fields have failed. But I don't think these emitters are going to go down as quickly. Based on our label, we are in the highest security cell. Power will keep shunting to us until the last."

Kirk turned back to Zuram. Glanced at Graham. "I'm going to tell them-"

Sounds rose from the corridor. Footsteps and figures rushed by in the direction away from the reception area. The shouting increased. Guards went by on their heels. Kirk skipped explaining to Graham, said in Vulcan, "No killing, just incapacitation. Can you accept that limitation?"

Zuram stared at Kirk.

"Please," Kirk said. "We have only one enemy here. The others-"

A figure in red with a flash of white hair stumbled by in the direction of reception, and went out of sight again.

"Doctor Van Gelder!" Kirk called out. "Doctor Van Gelder. We can help you."

The uneven footsteps stopped. The other banging nearby quieted. Other figures ran by.

Kirk listened, shuffled along the forcefield closer to the outer door, but where his view wasn't as good. He said loudly, "Doctor Van Gelder, graduate of Hunan Colony University, 2244, worked in Mexico City for twenty years. Assigned to Tantalus Colony April 4th, 2266. Promoted to director, August 20th, 2268."

Kirk breathed heavily, willed the man to come back. A figure in a red orderly's jumper lurched into the doorway opening, demented face set alight by the green force bars.

"Put your hand on the sensor," Kirk said. "You aren't officially an inmate according to the colony records. Go on, Doctor."

"He's not?" Graham said.

"They'd have to explain things to change his status. Things they don't want to explain."

Van Gelder straightened proudly, placed his hand on the sensor as if he did it every day. The bars fizzled out.

"In here, Doctor," Kirk said. "The other sensor over here."

On Kirk's left, the Vulcans gathered at the field. Kirk resisted glancing at them. He had no choice but to trust Zuram, had to hope that Kirk and Graham being his ticket off Tantalus V was enough to make him behave.

Van Gelder stood rigid at the panel on a stalk in the middle of the room. His body began vibrating. "I am . . ." He forced the words out. "I was . . . " He violently shook his head.

Graham said, "Doctor Van Gelder. Hi, I'm Commander Graham. Of the USS Hampton. I'm on the wrong side of the forcefield. Look at me."

Van Gelder stood straighter, tilted his rough skinned face backwards.

"I need to be on the other side of the forcefield, Doctor," Graham said. "I'm Starfleet Personnel."

Van Gelder tilted his head back farther, emitted a horrible groaning noise that broke into sobs.

"Put your hand on the sensor, Doctor," Kirk said. "Then we can assist you. We're both with Starfleet." Kirk pulled at the front of his uniform. "See."

Van Gelder fell to his knees clutching his side below his heart. He continued to exhale each tortured breath with a horrible rasping sound.

"Great Bird," Graham muttered.

"I. Will. Not. Obey." Van Gelder rubbed one hand over his face violently while clutching his side with the other. "Not. Obey. The. Pain." He tipped backwards on his knees, laughing out sobs, then choking. He caught himself and curled forward. "Not. Obey."

He fell, but reached out an arm for the sensor panel and the forcefields came down on all the cells in the suite.

Kirk and Graham rushed out. Van Gelder lay on the floor on his side, not moving or breathing.

"Ah, hell," Graham crouched beside him, turned him onto his back.

"Pick him up." Kirk looked to their companions. He pointed to one, said in Vulcan. "You on the end. I need help carrying him."

Zuram was still in the cell standing beside the young male.

Kirk and the burly Vulcan hefted Van Gelder's body. Kirk said to Zuram, "We'll come back for the others. I promise. We have to go. Now."

"You issuing commands?" Graham said.

Kirk flushed. "I think they're the ones you'd be giving. If that's any consolation."

"We're taking him, why?"

"We need him."

The red emergency lights were the only remaining illumination. Graham dipped her head out into the corridor and back in.

"To the left three guards visible. Right's clear. At least one guard down. Two on the left are forty meters down. They are busy. Let's go."

They jogged down the corridor, stopped at the controls for the closed interlock which still glowed in the dimness. Kirk gestured for the nearest Vulcan to take over carrying Van Gelder's legs, put Van Gelder's hand on the sensor, but it honked, rejecting his ID.

"Damn."

Graham said, "It says, life sensor error. That could be no pulse detected."

"Hold his hand on the sensor, sir," Kirk said to Graham.

Kirk pressed himself close to Van Gelder's chest, reached around his suspended body and began compressing his ribcage once a second, using his entire upper body strength to do so.

The console chirped and the first door of the interlock opened.

"Well. My hells," Graham said. "Everyone in."

They burst out low at the last door of the interlock. Beyond, there were three guards waiting. Zuram led the charge, barrelled through two of them, arms wide and immutable, before getting stunned and tumbling into a heap. Another Vulcan beside Kirk fell, also stunned. The guards were overwhelmed, neck pinched, thrown down. Kirk suffered a glare from the oldest Vulcan, presumably for limiting his options.

"You can always kill someone later," Kirk said to him. He bent to scoop up stun guns and handed one to the Vulcan. "Lots tougher to undo killing someone."

The Vulcan followed Kirk as he checked doorways. Stayed at his back, providing cover. Power was still on here in the personnel areas.

"Logical. For a human."

"I do try."

At the treatment room, Kirk slowed. Noel was in the chair and the device was running but no one was at the controls. Kirk violently switched the controls off.

"Everyone spread out," Graham said, slipping through. "Cover me, Kirk."

Kirk wanted to swear at her. His implanted love and now concern had surged again. He bit his lips and stood in the doorway, stun gun at ready while Graham checked Noel. Kirk strained to hear what was happening behind him. A staff member stuck his head out from the personnel dorms section and was stunned. He dropped so that he blocked the automatic doors from closing.

One Vulcan tilted his head in Kirk's direction. Said to another, "He has made us weak. I told you humans would do that."

"The human machine did that. I cannot bear not obeying."

"Everyone stay alert," Kirk said. "You can blame me later."

Kirk said over his shoulder. "She alive?"

"Not really." Graham came forward with Noel's arm around her shoulder, holding her up. She hung non-responsive there, eyes glazed.

Kirk closed his mouth. Swallowed hard. "Where is Adams I wonder. With your permission, sir, I'll check the facilities room."

"Go on. Realize he's likely armed to kill."

Kirk was pissed enough by Noel's state to hope for that. It would excuse a lot of violence.

The facilities room was empty. Kirk pushed the primary electrical emergency switch up again. He then found the communications panel and, after some haggling, got a connection to the Federation listening station, which forwarded his connection to earth without asking if that was what he wanted.

Kirk leaned heavily on the panel as he talked. He identified himself, and summarized the situation. He requested technical help, described the panel for the planetary force field and waited while someone obtained the codes to override the security on it. Beside the communications panel, the alarm board showed the security on the escape hatches had been disabled. It could be a false flag, but it seemed likely Adams had gone out that way.

Kirk went to the door, called out to Graham what his status was. She shouted back that he should wait on the comm. That things were under control.

Kirk worried about the inmates running loose. He now hoped the guards managed to do their jobs.

"Tantalus Colony," the radio burst with a new voice. "This is Administrative Control. Do you copy?"

"This is Tantalus Colony, Kirk here."

"I have codes and I am awaiting bypass authorization via Starfleet Security."

"We'd like to use the transporter, if possible. There is a full break out here and we need a lot of personnel brought down as fast as possible. Waiting four and a half hours for the shuttle is not possible."

"Understood. Stand by."

Little aches were prodding in Kirk's shoulders, in his side. His smashed hand felt stiff and hot. The adrenaline rush was going to wear off soon.

Kirk followed the instructions, brought the shields down. He dialled in the ship's transmitter, got a very surprised comm on the bridge.

Kirk summarized the situation. "I can put Graham on. But get every member of security ready to beam down while I fetch her."

Kirk switched places with Graham. Noel had been put on a couch, unresponsive. She lay in the crook of the cushions staring straight ahead. Kirk sat beside her, wondering at the state of himself. He loved Spock like no one else. But here was nearly the same emotion, generated from nothing.

"I know I don't love you," Kirk said to her.

He stood up, checked the security of the area. The interlock to the cell block was still sealed. Beyond, far down the corridor, security was going suite to suite in a squad. The interlock would chirp if it was accessed and it required about twenty seconds to cycle. Enough warning time. On the floor at Kirk's feet, the stunned Vulcans were beginning to stir.

"You all right, Zuram?"

Zuram sat up, propped his arms on his knees. His neck was bent, his face drawn. "That is an illogical question for you to ask of one such as myself."

"Common enemies do make for bad allies," Kirk said.

"Weak and soft and slow of mind you may be. You are no fool, Human Kirk."

The sound of transport filled the reception area and eight red shirts arrived, phasers at ready.

* * *

Kirk rubbed his hair, resisted standing and pacing yet again. He was still locked up, but this time in one of the Hampton's sickbay isolation rooms. He reached over to pull the monitor screen toward himself. It showed the ship's status. He tried to review his personal messages. There must be one from Spock. Given the mission delay, possibly more than one.

The computer refused to acknowledge him and remained read only, stubbornly showing the default status screens. They were still orbiting Tantalus V and would be until a Federation relief ship arrived in twenty hours. Kirk felt acutely guilty about his still confused emotions. He needed to talk to Spock to relieve that emotion, to perhaps confess, perhaps to renew his feelings for Spock enough he wouldn't have to. He was going to have to suffer the bitter guilt until then.

Kirk pushed the monitor away. The door swished open and Graham stepped in, looking trim and neat again. She had a security crewmember with her.

"I need you, Official Advisor. Come on."

Kirk stood eagerly, followed her out. The sickbay bustled with activity, the beds full of the worst injured from the penal colony. The less critical were being cared for onsite. Kirk didn't see Noel.

"If you can resolve this one," Graham said as she stepped into the lift. "You have license to be as obnoxious to me as you like until we reach earth."

"What's happening?" Kirk said.

"Prisoner trouble. Zuram. Already stunned him once. CMO will sanction me if we do it again."

Kirk straightened his back, followed her to the brig with security trailing them. The shouting was audible even before the brig doors parted.

Zuram struck the force field of the cell, sending a rushing electrical hum and yellow flashes along the surface of it. He was ranting in a mix of Vulcan and Standard, throwing himself at the field. At the sight of Kirk he jerked to a halt, turned to them, stood hunched, chest heaving. His brows were angled and his black eyes shone, revealing untapped depths of violence still to burn.

Kirk stepped up to the field. The bulkhead panels at the back of the cell were dented, as were the permanent fixtures.

"Commander," Kirk said.

Zuram's head shook in small motions, back and forth. "I will not. Stand. Will not. Bear this," he said in Vulcan.

"Can someone fill me in?" Kirk turned to Graham.

"We took the youngest to sickbay. CMO insisted given his vital signs. That's when this started."

Kirk turned back to Zuram. "Commander. What's your charge's name?"

Zuram's face pinched. His brows lowered. "Zulan."

Kirk put himself in a Vulcan frame of mind. Thought of Sarek, tried to emulate his speech patterns, his high minded confidence. "Commander Zuram. I pledge to you that I will look after your charge as if he were my own. And I will bring him back to you as soon as that is possible. All right?"

Some of the tension left Zuram's arms. His brows failed to relax.

Kirk said, "I have no other duties. My sole purpose on this vessel is to see to your needs. Understand I take that very seriously."

"Your seriousness will not stop them."

"Stop them from what?"

Zuram looked away. "If you cannot bring him back as he was, do not bring him back."

"I will bring him back as he was. I promise. All right?"

Zuram's face grew dark again, but he nodded crookedly, shifted his gaze to a random spot to Kirk's right. "I do not believe you. But I must." His shoulders slumped.

Kirk turned to Graham, raised a brow, indicated with his head that he was finished here. The doors swished closed between them and the prisoners.

"Maybe I need to learn Vulcan," Graham said.

"He's rightfully worried about the young Vulcan."

"CMO said nephew based on the scans."

They stepped into the lift.

"How critical is he?" Kirk asked.

"CMO didn't have much hope, said his cells were shutting down. What'd you promise Zuram?"

"We have twenty hours holding in orbit," Kirk said. "Then an indeterminate time for the handoff to Relief. Then twenty seven to Vulcan. Commander, a Vulcan ship could get Healers here in six hours, maybe less. Can you make an urgent request?"

"You aren't already abusing your new license, are you?"

She stepped out of the lift. Turned when Kirk remained inside it with the security member.

"You have to go back to isolation, Kirk," Graham said. "You're a threat to the ship." She smiled, tilted her head. "You are always a threat to the ship. It seems."

"Touché."


	11. Inmates, Part 5

Chapter 11 - Inmates, Part 5

Kirk accompanied Graham to the Hampton's sickbay. The staff were still moving rapidly about, arranging equipment, discussing ongoing treatments. Kirk crossed to the bed at the aft end of the room where Zulan lay unmoving. No treatment equipment was in place, just a neurofield probe extending out beside the pillow.

Kirk looked back. Graham was still near the door, at the nurse's station, speaking to Comm about a formal request to Vulcan. Kirk checked each bed for Noel, whom he'd managed to not think about for nearly twenty minutes, but did not see her. He pulled a chair around to the far side of Zulan's bed and sat there out of the way of staff. The security crewmember that had escorted Kirk to the brig and back joined his fellow flanking the door to sickbay. There were penal colony prisoners being treated, strapped down, drugged into sleep, as well as himself to guard.

Graham strode over, stood at the end of the diagnostic bed. "You staying here?"

"I said I would, sir."

She turned and walked away.

Kirk sat back against the bulkhead. He spoke low in Vulcan, reciting as best he could remember the meditative path he'd heard Amanda recite to Spock. When he'd done that, he waited, watched the monitor indicators. He couldn't see a change. He started a new meditative path, one about traveling the galaxy, navigating a nebula. He closed his eyes as he spoke, let his thoughts wander through checking ship settings, shield power levels, taking measurements. He didn't know a lot of the words in Vulcan, tried to make up words using the roots of others or combining unrelated words to make an approximate meaning.

Kirk's head nodded. He'd put himself to sleep. He sat forward, asked someone for a cup of coffee. He watched sickbay wind down into calm over the course of three hours. Graham returned, spoke to security at the door, came over to Kirk, stared up at the bed monitor.

"Any change?" she asked.

"Not that Doctor Imlay mentioned."

"You're okay without an escort. I cleared you while reviewing the tapes computing fetched from the penal colony. There was seventy two hours worth, after that they got wiped and written over again. Small mercies of this mission. Makes the reporting a hell of a lot easier."

Kirk watched her face when she paused. She was good at hiding her thoughts and her intentions when she wanted to. He wasn't sure it was a useful command aspect when seen from the other side.

She said, "Adams didn't program you to crash the shuttle. He didn't do anything to you beyond torture you and make you fall in love with someone you barely knew. Based on your reaction to her, it worked pretty well. By my read of it, Adams was showing off and when Noel chastised him, he got mad and took it out on you."

Kirk tugged the hair at the back of his head. He looked around the room at each bed. "What is Noel's status?"

"She's in isolation, heavily sedated. CMO wants to try using the same neural neutralizer that injured her as a treatment method. Even before the sedation I didn't get the sense there was much left."

"I'm sorry."

Graham zeroed in on Kirk, held his eyes. "Bother you more than it should?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Curious."

"I feel guilty that it does. Cover it?"

"Vulcans are the jealous sort. You told me that once."

Kirk sat back against the wall, crossed his arms. "I wasn't even thinking of that. I was thinking how flimsy love apparently is. You can make it out of nothing."

"That's always been my assumption. Welcome to the club." She stood looking at him. He couldn't tell what she was thinking.

Kirk shook his head, managed a wry smile. "Since you saw the tapes. Did Noel yank the primary power switch?"

"No. Adams did. Based on my quick review, Noel was doing a pretty good job convincing him he needed to rethink whether he was actually doing something positive. He really wanted to impress her. Adams's assistant Eli was the one that put her in the treatment room. He wanted her to quit messing with the boss. By the time Adams realized Eli was using the neutralizer on her, it was too late. We found Eli's body in one of the dormitories. He had been dead longer than any of the others."

Kirk adjusted his crossed arms to fit them together more snugly.

Graham said, "So, Kirk. How are you feeling other than your emotions?"

Kirk snorted. "You doing your CMO's job too? You're supposed to delegate, Commander. Leadership 101."

She waited, face neutral.

"I feel empty and uneasy," Kirk said. "If I think about that room, I long to flee."

"Not fight?" She cocked her head. "Not like you."

"I did fight it. With everything I had. That's why he kept upping the power."

She shifted her feet. "I saw on the tape."

"Did you find Adams?"

"He went out the emergency tunnel. If he had a private ship, cutting the shielding to run the transporters might have let him get to orbital altitude. Sensors didn't record a ship departing but might not have on standard scan if it was a small ship. I sent down a probe to do a detailed scan in the vicinity of the emergency exits in case he's holed up somewhere."

She studied Zulan on the bed. "You're free to roam, Kirk. Get a meal if you need one. Go to your quarters if you want."

"I'll be here at least until the Healers arrive."

"I admit. You're doing great with the part of this mission I most needed help with."

"Thank you, sir."

She shrugged. Departed.

The emptiness was overwhelming any relief Kirk should be feeling at learning he wasn't harboring any hidden commands. Kirk pulled the monitor over from the wall on its articulated arm, brought up his messages. There was one message from Spock from half a day ago. Kirk had the computer convert it to text. It was an ordinary daily message with a closing reiterating that Kirk needed to be extra careful around the Militants, that Spock considered himself responsible for Kirk being there. The clear subtext was that Spock was going to feel hopelessly, destructively guilty if anything happened.

In a low voice, Kirk told the computer to reply in text that he was back on board the Hampton and would follow up when he could. He pushed the monitor away and watched Zulan's unconscious face in profile. He spoke quietly to himself, "Your father's right, Spock. Humans are the more dangerous ones."

* * *

Spock ascended the steps of the Starfleet Annex auditorium to the very top back. Cadets Jaek and Horton looked up from the thick padd centered between them, watched Spock slide into the row.

Spock nodded, put on his best deferential tone. "Sirs."

The senior cadets looked at each other, looked at Spock.

Spock fixed his gaze on the front of the room. Chanel strode in. Turned to the female ensign slipping in behind her.

"Fursten, kind of you to join us. No no, take a seat in the front row. So few seem to want to." She smiled artificially. "And I need a target for the day. And you are already in red anyway."

Fursten blushed fiercely beneath her bright blond bangs, slid into a seat, sat at attention.

Chanel surveyed the room. "Your midterm project assignments are due next week. Everyone proceeding as planned? Before you polish them up to turn them in, consider that I may randomly and capriciously call on you to present them. Make them readable and organized and you will be considerably less likely to suffer such a fate." She gave a wry smile, began discussing flow design and modeling, accounting for the movement of personnel during the cycles of the day, and during different emergency and alert conditions.

Spock checked his messages manually, even though the system polled them automatically three and a half times a second. There was still nothing. It was now seven hours past the time that Spock had estimated as the longest possible for Kirk returning to the Hampton without a diversion in the expected mission events. Spock could no longer dismiss the rising estimate of something serious having gone wrong. And now he did not know how to estimate the timing for when he may be informed what.

Spock used his latest lesson with Zienn to isolate and diminish his worry and focus his attention on the instructor. The technique worked well, Spock's mind cleared, undisturbed. But by the end of the lecture, he was feeling adrift. His concern for Kirk was not just an emotional distraction, it was an anchor and purpose. It was not logical, but it was undeniable. He had never heard of this phenomenon being part of any formal Vulcan philosophy. And now wondered if he was comprehending the other side of Zienn's quest. Lacking this sort of suffering, worry and yearning, Zienn lacked a core purpose. Spock knew nothing else. Perhaps it was not entirely a curse as he'd always assumed.

Ten hours now. Lecture completed, Chanel was answering questions about projects, some of which indicated several students were not as far along as they should be.

"How about someone from the back? Our kiddies are so quiet up there, I forget we have them here to be babysat. How are your projects?" She paced the auditorium dais, hands on hips. "You do have projects underway, right? Someone report."

Jaek stood up, face aglow. "Yes, sir. Cadet Horton and I are just completing a project with the ship contractor my mother works for, to conduct a full habitability review on their showpiece project, which is a two generation colony ship. It's one of the few ships of its kind-"

"Did I give you permission for a joint project?" Chanel faced the room full on, seemed larger.

Jaek grew pale, lips thinner. But he had to speak up to be heard from the top row. "It's a large project, sir. Far too big for just one person."

"That's irrelevant, Cadet. The second project of the term is a group project. This was an individual project assignment. Anyone else make that mistake?"

No one replied.

She looked up again. "Cadet Spock, did you manage to follow instructions?"

Spock stood up. "Yes, sir."

"Of course you did. I suspect you are biologically incapable of doing otherwise. Sit down."

"After class, Cadets Jaek and Horton. Stay behind. I suggest you use the next twenty minutes of class to start cutting your project into two distinct ones. You're going to need the time."

She continued taking questions. Jaek and Horton argued in whispers over the padd lying between them. Other students turned to glance back at them in annoyance, looked ready to order them to shut up, but held back.

Spock opened his project on his padd. He needed to obtain actual data from the sensor array for his final report to have real meaning. The Apollo may not make a trial run in space before Spock's assignment was due, but it would more than likely power up the new impulse engines and run the fields at startup idle. That would constitute the secondary baseline data for future measurements. It would be something rather than nothing. But Spock would have no access to the sensor's data by the time such tests were run, and he doubted Chief Ping would provide him access.

Spock's padd flashed as he'd programmed it to do if he received a message from Kirk. The entirety of the message fit in the preview box. Kirk was safe. But the message was uncharacteristically terse. Spock's emotions of concern were still stored away, in a place resembling a quasi present-distant past. If he examined the emotions again, they would shift, perhaps surprising him with their strength. He left them stowed away. It was not logical to feel anything until he spoke with Kirk.

* * *

Kirk lifted his head from resting it back against the sickbay bulkhead. Two older Vulcans approached, both female, both wearing headdresses that indicated their attained priesthood level, although Kirk didn't know what level it indicated for their sect.

One of them held a hand out over Zulan's body, moved it until it was right above his nose, held it there, closed her eyes.

After a minute, she withdrew her hand and turned to Doctor Imlay, who had come up behind her. Imlay was squat woman with short black curled hair and ridged brows.

"We will attempt a chain of healing melds," the taller of the Vulcans said in slow measured tones.

"Do you want to use an isolation room? We have one available."

"This location is sufficient," the other replied.

Kirk rocked to his feet. "I have a request." He spoke in Standard so Imlay could understand. "Don't change him. Don't heal him beyond what the machine did to him. Okay?"

The smaller Vulcan tilted her chin rather than raise a brow. "We have yet to evaluate him."

"This is important. I know there is a way he's supposed to be, according to your way, and he's not like that. But don't fix that right now. I promised his family you wouldn't do so." Kirk looked between them. He wondered if this conversation was more difficult because it should be in Vulcan, or if he cared for Spock on a level that would always make this conversation difficult.

"What an unexpected and strange promise."

"It's not strange to me. Trust me." Anger woke Kirk up. He stood taller, resisted glaring at the Healer.

The three of them stood silent for a time. The taller one said, "We shall do our best. It is likely, in any event, that the recent injury is significant work to repair on its own."

Kirk exhaled, returned to his chair, returned to leaning his head against the bulkhead to relieve his sore neck.

Zulan didn't even twitch when the gnarled fingers contacted his face. Kirk had expected, had hoped, that the boy was lying low and faking such a dangerously senseless state.

The healer stood motionless until it was time to switch melds to the other healer. Kirk's head nodded. An orderly pressed a hot coffee cup into his hand. He mouthed a thanks.

Hours dragged by. Kirk paced, trying not to annoy any of the patients by doing so. He was glad to have a purpose to keep the emptiness at bay, so he made himself overly determined about his present duties. He couldn't afford to think about Spock until he could speak with him. Noel had been hovered out an hour earlier. It made his hands sweat to remember the limp sight of her. How could he feel something so powerful so easily?

From the center of the room he watched the taller of the two Vulcans, her head bent so the opaque white stones on her headdress were straight vertical, like stone tufts on a bird. Her aged hands were pressed to Zulan's face in exactly the same position as the last hour. Kirk felt a twisting pang. He wanted to be under those hands, any hands. No longer desperately alone.

Kirk closed his eyes. He mouthed the word "damn," began pacing again.

Another hour. The priestess healer opened her eyes and withdrew.

"Allow him to rest," the taller one said.

Kirk nodded as if he were in charge of things. They departed with a shuffle of heavy robe.

Kirk wanted to wake the boy and drag him to the brig. He didn't know how long Zuram would hold out with just the sliver of Kirk's promises holding his violent anger in check. Kirk shifted the chair so he could prop his head against the side of the diagnostic panel, dozed.

Kirk woke to movement, Imlay checking the readings.

"Looks like he's coming around." She reached under the blanket to check the security straps on Zulan's arms.

Kirk stood up, leaned against the bed. Zulan's face was turned far to Kirk's side of the bed. His eyes just barely cracked open. He remained that way, unmoving.

"Zulan." Kirk spoke in Vulcan. "No one's going to harm you."

Zulan's arms tugged suddenly against the straps. Kirk didn't react. Imlay did. She stepped back, glared.

"I'll report to the commander." She shuffled off shaking her head.

Zulan still hadn't moved his eyes beneath his slitted lids or shifted his uncomfortably placed head. Kirk crossed his arms, waited many minutes.

"Need anything?" Kirk asked.

"Your Vulcan is terrible." Zulan finally turned his head to stare straight up. He pulled on the straps again, strained his arms many seconds before relaxing again. "What I would do to you if I could."

KIrk leaned jauntily on the side of the diagnostic bed. "Such as?"

"You taunt me?"

Kirk smiled. "What would you do? Suck out my soul?"

Zulan's brows lowered in confusion. "I do not possess that skill."

"My Vulcan lover does. You are failing to impress me."

Zulan stared up at the overhead again. He gathered a stern face. "Your words are like a puzzle. I must pluck out the meaning from a tangle."

Kirk smiled. "At least we're communicating. Feeling up to returning to your uncle?"

Zulan's gaze swung to Kirk, considered him darkly. "This will be allowed?"

Kirk found the CMO with his gaze. She came over.

"Can he be released to the brig?"

She held up a scanner, looked at the readings, adjusted the monitor, studied that. "He needs to take it easy. I'd prefer to hold him here for twenty four hours."

"That's not feasible," Kirk said.

"Let me check with the commander."

Kirk watched her at the desk by the door speaking with Graham. He said to Zulan, "If you don't want to be with your uncle, you need say that now."

"I displease him."

"He was tearing the ship apart due to being separated from you." Kirk made a funny face. "I mean, actually damaging the ship with his bare hands."

"I displease everyone."

"Comes from pleasing yourself first."

Zulan shook his head. "Your words are like . . . idiot poetry." He stared upward again. "But uncle honors you."

"For reasons I'm not comfortable with, but I'll take it because it's convenient."

Imlay came back over with security flanking her, weapons out. "You're being moved." She looked at Kirk. "Tell him to behave."

Kirk stared at Zulan, brow raised. Zulan looked away, rolled his eyes. Nodded.

Zulan walked slowly down the corridor. Security made a move to prod him to speed up and Kirk raised a hand, gave them a sharp back-off signal. They straightened, slowed to the youth's pace.

Kirk led the way into the brig, stopped in the doorway to invite Zulan in. Zuram was at the back of his cell, leaning against the wall, bent over. He raised his head and stared. He came to the field just as security ordered him back from it. Zuram reluctantly stepped back, face brooding.

The field came down with a sizzle. Zulan approached, stood opposite Zuram but still outside the cell.

"Uncle. I have failed but I have returned."

Kirk stepped closer, but remained out of range of any sudden movements Zulan may decide to make. "He needs to rest. Doctor's orders. Go on," Kirk said to Zulan.

Zulan stepped inside and stood before Zuram, head bowed as if expecting the worst. The security field sizzled back into place.

Zuram moved jerkily. He gestured at the damaged bed. "Rest," he gruffly ordered.

"Do you require anything else, Commander?" Kirk asked.

Zuram turned, stared at Kirk's chest. "Not from you."

"Fair enough." Kirk turned to Lt. Nangana who had come aside him. "If you need me, I'll be in my quarters. Your quarters. Sleeping."

"Yes, sir. Thank you for your assistance, sir."

Kirk looked back at Zuram, who was now sitting on the floor in a meditative posture. He opened his eyes and stared off to the side of Kirk.

"Pride," Kirk said in Vulcan, thought it a valid warning.


	12. Need, Part 1

Chapter 12 - Need, Part 1

Kirk lay on the spare bunk in Lt. Nangana's empty quarters. The quiet washed over him, urging him to calm, but also made him long for noise to break up its power. He huffed, thought he should be getting better at handling this sort of disturbance of the mind, given his copious chances to practice. He forced his eyes open, pulled the monitor over and checked the time. Spock might be done with project meetings for the day. Might be in his dorm room. Kirk requested a connection and lay back again.

Comm informing him the connection was established jarred Kirk out of sleep. He sat up, pulled the screen over and arranged a pillow to prop himself up. The achingly familiar visage solidified on screen, Spock in his blue gray Academy one-piece, his hair getting maybe a tad long down his cheeks. Kirk wondered why he felt what he did for him, but it felt just as real as ever.

"Spock."

"James." Spock took him in, asked in an even tone, "Are you all right?"

"It's been a bit rough. But I'm mostly all right."

Spock's expression didn't change.

Kirk said, "It wasn't the Militants that were the problem. But I can't go into more detail." Kirk bit his lips. "Our ETA to earth has been pushed back a day and a half, at least. Just so you know."

Spock nodded.

"You okay? Any more run-ins with upperclassmen?" Kirk tilted his head. "Or captains? Or admirals?"

"I attempted to be more deferential today to the senior cadets. I believe it had the outcome of confusing them."

Kirk tried to smile. "Well, that's progress."

Spock tilted his head. "You cannot discuss in what way you are unwell in any more detail?"

Kirk rubbed his eyes. "No. But I'll be better after some shut-eye."

"I should sign off and let you do so, in that case."

Kirk lifted his chin. "You are unusually unemotional today."

Spock nodded. "Zienn taught me a second level method of emotional distancing. It is rather effective."

"You're just practicing then? Or does it turn out to be easier to live like that?"

Spock's gaze shifted away from the monitor. "Yes and no. Do you wish me to cease using it?"

Kirk took a deep breath. "I don't know what I want."

"In that case, I concur that you require sleep."

Seeing Spock was reminding Kirk that he never trusted love before meeting Spock. He wondered what had changed.

"Can I help you with anything, James? Is Commander Graham aware you are having difficulty?"

Kirk bit his jaw down on scolding Spock for babying and second guessing him.

Spock grew more stoic. "My question has displeased you. But I refuse to withdraw it."

"Yes. She knows." Kirk felt empty and, on top of that, annoyed with himself. He longed to see Spock as much as he longed for more time to question and comprehend his emotions.

"Have you received your new transport arrangements for the Lohanna Sector?" Stating this question revealed the first cracks in Spock's level demeanor.

Kirk looked at his nails. "Not yet. So, you and I will have a little time. I need to see you. Talk to you." Kirk thought, and try and resist asking for a meld.

"If I sign off, James. Will you sleep?"

Kirk raised his head. He'd been deep in thought. "Yes, I will. Talk to you later. Kirk out."

Kirk's last glimpse of Spock was of his fine angled brows pulling together in concern. Kirk shoved the monitor away and sat with his head on his arms, propped on his knees. He didn't recognize himself. He could get through a lot if he still saw himself within. Trouble was, the Kirk who intensely wanted someone for no good reason and a few weeks later would spectacularly break up was more recognizable, and more comfortable.

* * *

Kirk woke to the sound of the door swishing open. Lt. Nangana stepped just inside. He observed Kirk, then waved someone in. It was the taller of the two Vulcan Healers.

"Sorry sir. Commander's orders."

Kirk pushed himself up, scratched his chest. He'd gone to sleep in his uniform and his skin felt pressed into wrinkles.

"I see."

The healer approached, stood with hands steepled, studying him with new attention. Kirk rotated his stocking feet to the side, remained sitting on the bed with them dangling.

Kirk had longed for her hands earlier. Now he felt ill at the thought, acutely ashamed of the desire.

"I don't want a meld," Kirk said in Vulcan.

"If I may, sir," Nangana said. "Commander Graham strongly insists. She wishes you to avoid difficulties with your next assignment. She states that if your experiences are evaluated immediately and the incident closed, that you are unlikely to have further questions arising about them."

"Right. You speak Vulcan?"

"No, sir. I'm wearing a translator earpiece to assist with the prisoners." He touched a broad hand to his left ear. "Do you prefer that I remove it?"

"Yes, Lieutenant, I would. Thank you."

Nangana bent his head, plucked off a c shaped device from around his ear and placed it on the desk. He stepped back to his previous position, great arms latched in front of himself, gaze distant and fixed in the direction of the door. Present but unassuming. He said, "Commander Graham also stated that if you preferred her to be present rather than myself, that I should page her."

This heated Kirk's chest. He didn't want to be babied by Graham either.

Kirk turned back to the Healer, resumed speaking in Vulcan. "I don't know your name."

The healer raised her brows. "T'Loun."

"Hello, T'Loun. I'm James. And what temple did you train at, T'Loun. And where do you reside now?"

There was a longer pause. "Temple Lorpathin. I have always been there. I was not informed that you spoke Vulcan."

"Of a sort, I'm told." Kirk breathed in, let his shoulders slump. He disliked explaining himself. Disliked having no real choices. Silence fell.

Nangana said, "Would you prefer Commander Graham, sir?"

Kirk rubbed his eyes. Graham knew he'd been mind raped. He almost said yes, so he could say something vicious to her when she showed up. He shook himself. He was on edge and acting poorly both with Spock and now. Graham was doing her job, reasonably and considerately. Kirk had no right be pissed off about that.

"No. Lieutenant. Just please take a seat. I don't need a guard. I just don't want to be alone during this."

Nangana grew concerned, looked Kirk over in a mystified way that assured he did not know what the issue was. He nodded, pulled the desk chair out and sat his bulk in it.

Kirk met T'Loun's aged, damp eyes. "I don't like melds with Vulcans I don't know well. And I want to tell you to go away."

"I cannot force a meld on you, as you are certainly aware." Her voice was lower, coarser.

"It's not you doing the forcing. It's circumstance. I don't have a professional choice in the matter." Kirk pinched the bridge of his nose. Spock would never define this as cheating on him no matter how deeply intimate a meld felt. Kirk considered T'Loun's parchment like wrinkles, her long face and proud nose. At some point, Kirk had taken on Spock's attitude about melds. At least he could count on Spock understanding his reticence, if no one else.

"What do you want me to do?" Kirk asked.

"Lie down. With your head there." She indicated the foot of the bed.

Kirk rotated, put his stocking feet on the pillow, lay back and tried to let his the layers of energy out of his limbs. She approached, hands clasped, eyes half closed. Alarm filled Kirk's arms, he held them down at his sides, hooked his thumbs under his hips.

T'Loun had kept her word about not altering Zulan. Kirk could find a lot of trust in that. Her hand reached out, dry rough fingers found his temple, his cheek. She began speaking low in Vulcan. Kirk stared beyond her at the ceiling. His heart thudded, readying for frantic movement. He felt the stirrings of a presence that shouldn't be there, resisted jerking his head to the side with great willpower. He wanted to trust, but there was little basis to. He dearly wanted to feel another presence all the way through him, all the way into the painful emptiness. He hated that it wasn't Spock with him now, hated this indecent desire for closeness with anyone capable of it. The fingers withdrew.

"I estimate that you need time to assimilate events before such exposure," T'Loun said. "Perhaps an alternative technique. One where I probe selectively only so that I can describe your condition accurately but without the same intimacy. Will that be better?"

Kirk lifted his head to look at her. "Yes. That sounds much better. Thank you."

"Rest back," she admonished.

She put her hand on Kirk's forehead as if checking his temperature. Kirk felt a lassitude seeping through him, wrap him up like a cocoon. He gave into it with fatalistic enjoyment, felt a tingle of her approval at his aiding her efficiency. Her index and middle fingers strayed through his hair, moved around his head, paused, moved on, paused.

"Remember the treatment room," she said, voice hypnotic.

Kirk reluctantly did. He worked his mind back to being dragged from the cell, pushed into the chair. He remembered his confusion, remembered the distressful emptiness, remembered knowing he was not tied down but could not rescue himself. Remembered trying to stand, to fight for sovereignty over his own will, but failing even that simple, usually automatic thing. The crushing helplessness and emptiness.

She asked him to remember Adams's voice. Kirk did, with a clarity he wouldn't have thought possible. She walked him through the memory with her voice, sensing his thoughts but not invading them. Kirk remembered falling to the floor and struggling there before apparently blacking out.

The gnarled hands withdrew, returned to steepled. "That is sufficient to report to your superior. I can do more, but it would, by necessity, involve a meld."

Kirk sat up, which forced her to step back out of the way. "You must still be fatigued from treating Zulan."

She nodded crookedly, looked older. "That is an excuse on your part, I strongly estimate."

"I can get help on earth," Kirk said. "We are reporting there next."

"I am failing in my duty as promised to your superior. By my oath, I require more assurance than that."

Kirk pieced Vulcan words together as best he could. "This need for a meld makes me unwilling to submit to you. Certainly you can understand that given how intimate Vulcans are with each other this way."

"That is irrelevant. Will you find proper care on your planet?"

"That's not a problem. I have an exalted high priest at my disposal."

She paused, tilted her head. "You do? This is true?"

Kirk hopped off the bed, smiled for the first time since the mission went wrong. "I do. And others besides." But the thought of melding with Sarek when he hungered this much made him feel queasy, almost incestual.

Kirk raised his hand, gave his best approximation of a Vulcan greeting. T'Loun returned it, had no choice but to depart or risk rudeness.

Nangana heaved out of the chair to escort her out. He nodded at Kirk with an official air before the door swished closed.

Kirk leaned back against the bed. They'd deliver the prisoners to Vulcan and then his duties would be finished. He'd have a day on the way to earth to sort himself out to avoid being less than himself when he encountered Spock.

* * *

Sarek was already seated at the tea table reading from a padd when Spock arrived.

Spock stood beside the table, bent his head. He was copiously applying Zienn's technique for emotional isolation today. He intended to spend brunch dutifully immutable and proper. Being late would be a poor start.

"Was I mistaken regarding the time of our meeting, Father?"

"I began early. Take a seat." Sarek continued reading.

Spock scooted his chair in, poured himself tea. He selected and bit into a small disk of pokeberry pie.

"Do not let your mother see you eating that."

Spock put the pie down and wiped the dark berry juice off his finger. "Does mother not approve the menu?"

"There was only one of those on the tray. I assume it was intended for me."

Spock stared at the bitten off half remaining on his plate. He was discovering a limitation of Zienn's technique. Unlike the priest, Spock had a plethora of potential emotions not yet faded into a false past memory and any one of them could rise up into the immediate with a change in circumstance.

"I should not have taken it in that case," Spock said.

Sarek rotated in his chair to set his padd aside. "You may have it. I am certain it is harmless to you. Though your mother worries otherwise."

"It is one of my favorites." Spock stated this with proper factuality.

Sarek topped up his tea. "Only because by the time you had a real tricorder your mother insisted the chef here at the earth embassy stop serving them. The fruit's compounds are highly mutagenic to most earth mammals."

Spock halted with the second bite halfway to his mouth. Sarek held his steaming cup in both hands, observing him. Spock studied the small dark berries leaching out of the crust. He hadn't brought his tricorder, although he did have an old one in his room.

"I observed you eat a number of those when you were small," Sarek said. "With no bad outcome. Empirical evidence that I would trust as reliable."

Spock nibbled rather than eat the remainder in a single bite. The complex flavor played with every part of his palate. Even with age, with better disciplines, food undermined his internal focus. He wanted to eat the rest of it, but held off. He considered the options on the tray instead.

"I received a notice from the Hampton," Sarek said.

"Can you share its contents?"

"They requested Healer-priests be sent to Tantalus on a fast ship. There was at least one prisoner who Starfleet estimated would not survive to reach Vulcan without expert assistance."

"Can you say which prisoner?"

"Zulan."

"Interesting" Spock plucked up a square of marmalade upside-down cake instead of finishing the pie. "I recall him as virile and hardened, without mercy or revealed weakness. What happened to him?"

"I was not given particulars. Only that he had been poorly treated. Have you communicated with James?"

"Very briefly." Spock had arrived with those potential emotions firmly put aside. "He was not entirely well. The mission encountered some difficulty that he could not speak of in detail, except to say that the Militants were not the cause." Spock clasped his hands. "Now I am additionally concerned for James as well."

"You will not make progress on your concerns without more data. How were your classes this week?"

"They ranged from acceptable to good. My project on the Apollo must conclude this week. I have two other group projects ongoing. I am also attempting to better maximize my cultural understanding as part of my usual daily interactions."

Sarek's face shifted, his brows flattened, pulled inward. "The way you state the latter does not sound promising."

"Father, are you chastising me for being too precise in my language?"

"Yes."

Spock looked down at his plate. "I see." Zienn's technique continued to fail Spock. He could not possibly predict this many emotions from one encounter with his father. He tried to set aside this latest set of reactions, plus embarrassment, which he was more practiced at using other techniques so he floundered briefly before settling back to stoic.

Sarek put his cup aside, pulled a plate closer and studied the tray of cakes. "You have learned a new discipline but have not mastered it."

"Yes."

"By all means, practice it if you believe it useful." Sarek's voice grew easier. "You, as a being, exist in a middle ground, Spock. I would encourage you to find your place there as well, a place where you need not illogically expend energy trying to remain elsewhere."

Spock laced his fingers together at the edge of the table, stared at the half eaten remains on his plate. He felt very young.

"You are changing your mind about a great number of things," Spock said.

Sarek stiffened. "I am adjusting my thinking." He poured more steaming tea into his cup. "Properly. Based on ongoing advice from one I am not allowed to ignore."

Spock looked down at his hands. "I did not realize Zienn was continuing to communicate with you."

The steaming cup hid part of Sarek's face as he raised it. "Regularly. He informs me that you are dutiful student of his instruction. I assume the same at the Academy although I do not have a means of verifying. Do you know your rank in your class?"

"I believe that is officially published at the halfway point in the term and at the conclusion of the term."

"How are you progressing at it?"

"I have not attempted to estimate this, Father. Is it important to you?"

Sarek's face grew flat. Spock took his answer from that.

Spock said, "I have another tutoring session with T'Gowen this week. Her anthropological and ethnographic background was indeed helpful. My general understanding of the sphere of Galactic Cultures improved, but I am no more able to succeed at the assignments. I will keep trying. I have another session with her on Wednesday."

"Are there other topics in which you require assistance?"

Spock resisted reacting. "Literature."

"We will find you someone for that as well."

Spock ate the last bite of his cake, wiped his hands. "I am not displeased to do poorly in this."

Sarek's disapproving left brow went all the way up.

Spock bowed his head. "I will attend to whatever tutor you see fit to find for me, Father."

"I should think."


	13. Need, Part 2

Chapter 13 - Need, Part 2

Spock elevated his mind up out of the deep meditation necessary to recover from his lesson. Outside the apartment windows, the air was faceted with reflected cloudy light. Zienn remained sitting, fingers steepled before him. Spock stood up from the floor.

"Cadet."

Overlander sat on one of the stools, drinking tea that filled the apartment with roasted raspberry scent. Spock stopped beside the high counter and waited to be addressed further.

"You have another install this week I saw on the schedule. The engine work will be in progress while you're in there. It will be harried, but a good experience for you. This the last install window you need?"

"Yes, sir. Barring any unforeseen difficulties."

"Nothing is ever completely unforeseen, with enough insight."

Spock nodded. "I may have used imprecise human language, sir. My apologies."

Overlander smiled. "I'm teasing you. But it is one of my mantras. Along with there is no such thing as the unexpected, just poor planning based on too much optimism."

"Indeed, sir. I understand that these are attempts to inspire the effort required to avoid intellectual laziness."

"Engineers are born lazy. So, yes. But I want to hear how your experience has gone. Report, Cadet."

"Crewperson Hully has been extremely helpful and patient with my errors. I have gained experience with careful procedure. I again would like to express my gratitude for your allowing me to proceed with this assignment."

Overlander sipped her tea, ran her tongue over the front of her teeth. "Well, I'm glad to hear that. Nothing else?"

Spock shook his head.

"You're sure?"

"Yes, sir."

She put her tea down. "If you are sure . . ."

"There is one thing, sir. I was hoping, for the purposes of my class assignment, to obtain a copy of the data, even a few minutes of data, from any trial run with the new engines powered."

She lifted her chin. "That's an acceptable request, but one best taken up with the chief."

"Of course, sir."

She put her mug down but held onto the handle. "Are you going to do that?"

Spock had spent the afternoon observing and practicing advanced techniques for controlling expressions of his emotions, but his arms warmed with his reaction to this prospect. "I will do so, sir."

"It's a reasonable request. You can tell the chief I said so."

Spock nodded. "Yes, sir."

"You've got a bit to learn yet, Spock." This was stated with hitch of affection. "But get going with your day. I have to get to the ship for a shift."

"Yes, sir."

Spock departed, expression flat and inward.

Overlander waited until she heard the lift pneumatics shift pressure out in the corridor, indicating Spock was out of hearing range. She looked into her tea mug. "My chief's trying to make him miserable and he won't say boo about it."

Zienn opened his eyes. "It is short term."

"Perfect time to learn better how to deal with it. Not ignore it." She stood up, ran her artificial fingers through her hair. "Maybe I can find a way to intervene in some remotely positive fashion. We'll see."

* * *

Kirk stood on the bridge of the USS Hampton at the rail near the command chair beside First Officer Hogan. Graham sat in the chair, but looked ready to jump out of it, as usual. She wasn't the type to relax, which Kirk could understand. But he had no trouble losing himself in the mental tasks of a ship and staying put for ten minutes at a go. It made him suspect her mind was elsewhere too often.

The USS Hampton had formally requested docking a half hour earlier and had been directed to Runith, the farthest most orbital station around Vulcan. Graham had the station on comm and was having difficulty arranging things the way Starfleet's instructions to them indicated. She leaned over the armrest to talk as if instinctively believing the mic pickup was the problem with their communication. The Vulcans were suggesting transport, rather than have the Hampton docking directly.

"Whatever way we move bodies, we have to have a formal debriefing to finalize our end," Graham said for a third time. She pushed the comm stud off. Muttered to the bridge, "Damn they are obstinate. I want to tell them to forget it."

"By the way, sir, Vulcans are the masters of ultimatums." Kirk attempted to sound light and helpful.

"So I shouldn't try that game with them, you are saying? I'd make you handle this if I could."

"Just the usual advice of not playing to their strengths."

"Oh, I can out stubborn them. Want to see me try?"

Engineering turned around with a grin.

"I can see they've got docking space." She sat back, elbows up. "They clearly want us no closer in. If not out of orbit entirely."

Kirk glanced at her, refrained from pointing out that they might still be a little touchy after the incident with the Potemkin. No doubt, they were making a bureaucratic point about Hampton's presence.

The comm chirped. A new voice, even more stilted than the last came on. "We have reserved bay eleven. Is this acceptable?"

"Yes. Thank you." She hit the stud again. "Finally. Helm, get us in."

She hopped out of the chair as if never wanting to get back in it. "Come on, Kirk. Let's wrap this up. Comm, have my Yeoman meet me at the docking bay on Deck 3 with the Healers. Hogan, take the conn."

She halted the lift at Deck 3. "Since you keep trying your best to make things run smoothly, Commander Kirk, why don't you go get the prisoners ready to go so we don't have trouble on that end too."

He wanted to tell her to behave herself with the Vulcan escort, but smiled wryly instead. He nodded officially, pushed the lever for the lower decks.

Kirk stood before the security field on Zuram's cell. All the prisoners had come to stand at the fields, watching him.

"We seem to be repeating ourselves, Commander," Kirk said in Vulcan. "Despite your history, I regret that you weren't left in better conditions previously. War makes it hard to conduct oversight."

"In many ways better there than here."

"I get the sense they don't want you on the planet. If that's any consolation."

"We might disturb their _tranafkutz_ , their communal mind sense. We are now outcasts not outliers."

"You exiled yourselves. Being part of a community means giving up a little. If your pride won't let you do that, then it's irreconcilable and I have nothing to offer you."

The door to security swished open and was held open by the foot of one of the guards, who collectively put their hands on their hips, right above their weapons and held them there. The ten-Vulcan escort from the station wore imposing gray and white robes in various styles, and appeared to be a diplomatic delegation more than a security detail. They also appeared to be completely unarmed.

"How many at a time?" Graham said, her eyes taking them in the same way Kirk just had.

A shorter Vulcan with more ornate robes said, "Five to six."

Security dropped the field on one of the three cells and, weapons in hand, gestured for them to exit. At the docking bay, the lead Vulcan turned to Graham. "Your personnel will not be allowed on the station. Especially not armed."

"You're going to take them from here, Starn?" Her face shifted several times from amused to mocking. "Sure. Your problem now." She gestured at the interlock and beyond where the station gangway stretched away, stepped aside, stood with hands latched behind her.

With two in the lead walking backwards and three behind, a Vulcan took apparently visual charge of each prisoner and after stern glares all around, stepped off the ship.

Graham remained beside the portal, glanced down it a few times until it was clear. Waited another three minutes staring at the floor.

She looked across at Kirk. "I'm very close to handing this off to you. We need to inspect. We need a full formal debriefing. 'Fleet will pitch a fit after what happened if we don't get at least those two out of them."

Kirk nodded, forced himself into the present. The wating lull hadn't been good for him. He felt more alone than he should in the wake of the crowd departing, despite security still standing around them at ready.

They transfered Zuram's cell on the second round. Again, Kirk, Graham and company waited at the portal for the escorts to return.

When they did, Graham said, "Hold up. Kirk and I are going with you for the last round. We have to inspect the new facilities."

Starn turned to her. "After you failed to provide adequate ones yourself?"

Graham did a slow blink. "Yes."

Starn, "I do not have authorization to allow you on this station."

Graham took a small step forward, leaned in. "Since when has that been a problem? Your station is in Federation Space, high orbit. We're here on official business."

Kirk glanced away. He would hate to be interrupted at this moment if it were him.

Graham said, "I can go over your head." She counted out on her fingers, spoke slowly. "We are required to inspect. We are required to debrief you. You have no legal standing to turn us away. Keep stalling and we're going to be here even longer. You aren't going to push us back until you meet our perfectly reasonable demands."

Starn glanced at another of the escorts, then at the Healers who were standing off to the side, hands steepled, serene. Kirk appreciated them even more than he had before.

"It does not please us to have you and your armed ship here," Starn said. "We have already conceded to your presence."

Graham breathed in and out once, raised a brow. "Listen, buddy. This is my ship, under my command. Do you understand that, chain of command thing?"

Kirk swallowed. Wanted her to look to him, signal that she was handing things off.

Starn nodded, slowly, crookedly.

"My ship," Graham said. "Is not going to do anything untoward here. I assure you of that. Is that your problem?"

Starn didn't respond. Kirk expected he couldn't without breaking propriety.

Kirk spoke into the silence. "Commander Graham? They certainly don't know any details. I was following your hearings as closely as public info allowed. Starfleet didn't share much outside the diplomatic corps. We're just another Starfleet ship."

Graham stared at Kirk. "Want to take this over?"

"If you wish."

Kirk turned to Starn, switched to Vulcan. "Honored Starn, we seem to be at an impasse. if I may have a word with you in private?" Kirk had been listening to Spock and Zienn speaking the temple dialect. He threw that into the honorifics, let the rest of his half invented language fall where it may.

The sternness eased from Starn's face. Curiosity started to intrude. He glanced down at Kirk's weapon. Kirk held his hand phaser out for the nearest security crewmember to take it, held his hands out as he'd seen Spock do.

Starn nodded almost too faintly to detect.

Kirk looked around, led the way to a maintenance access cabin just aft last larger large portal used for resupply. The door sealed behind them.

Starn's face had a soft brow, less prominent, like Spock's family tended to. He was short for a Vulcan and their gazes were level with each other. Kirk settled into a matter of fact attitude. "You are personally and professionally insulting Commander Graham, Honored Starn in a manner you would regret if you understood more of the situation."

There was a long pause. "Explain."

"I realize it probably seems the Hampton is just another vessel you would prefer remained outside your star system. But the Hampton's commander, Graham, put her life at risk to save your world. She disobeyed outranking officers and damaged the Potemkin so it could be disabled. She had to withstand deadly fire on her location to accomplish this." Kirk wanted to gesture, gripped his hands into fists instead. "Actually ordered fire on herself. I know this because I was there. I honestly thought she could not survive it. In the aftermath of her disobedience and the difficulties inside Starfleet, her career barely did."

Kirk relaxed his hands at his sides "I understand your animosity toward us as an organization, especially at the moment, but at the personal level, you are not representing your people well. I felt it my responsibility to inform you of this."

Starn began studying Kirk more closely as if attempting non touch telepathy.

Kirk said, "I realize my Vulcan is inventive. Am I communicating here?"

"Yes. I understand you."

"This ship's two highest ranking officers, myself and Graham, both were there, defending your world. Just as the rest of Starfleet was trying to be."

"Your officers are one aspect of the events. The inclination is still endemic."

Kirk sighed. "It might be. It will ease now that the Militants are no longer acting with impunity." Kirk stood straighter. "Can I, on behalf of Commander Graham, request your cooperation, Honored Starn?"

"I am curious where you learned such Vulcan. You are using an old temple honorific system of suffixes. How did you know I would know it?"

"I didn't. I'm just doing the best I can here to show respect."

Starn's expression was no longer stoic, but Kirk couldn't interpret it. "Since you have explained, as you say, at a personal level, yes, you may request better cooperation."

Kirk bowed faintly. "Thank you."

"Again, with the temple language. I am curious what your personal story is since you shared with me another's."

Kirk reached for the door trigger, tilted his head. "I'm surprised Vulcans don't consider curiosity an emotion."

Starn's brows went up.

Kirk smiled. "As to my story. Ask Zuram. He might tell you. And it would give you two a chance to talk." He triggered the door. Held back on smiling more at Starn's increased confusion.

Graham was standing at the portal, arms crossed, leaning back against the corner of it. It didn't look comfortable.

Starn told the escorts in Vulcan that they would be honoring Graham's requests. Graham looked to Kirk, who nodded.

Graham rocked herself straight. "Thank the bird. Let's get this over with." She took off in the direction of the brig.

Starn turned to Kirk, watched him pass with one of those incapable of understanding humans expressions.


	14. Need, Part 3

Chapter 14 - Need, Part 3

Hully led the way to the USS Apollo's engineering section. It was far more organized relative to the day Spock began his project. The remaining dismantled equipment was neatly on carts. Decorative panels were stacked beside the repaired hole cut in the bulkhead. The hole itself had been modified into a row of neatly trimmed access portals.

Hully said, "The impulse bay isn't evacuated for the install, and the atmosphere is held in by field pressure so we need to be suited up, but not full suits, just the EMEVs. Come on."

Chief Ping was standing at the planning board with his assistant. Spock stopped, let Hully go on toward the lockers.

"Sir," Spock said.

Ping's face crinkled up in what Spock estimated was distaste. "What is it?"

"I expect to complete the high sensitivity position sensor install today. Is it possible, sir, for me to obtain test data from the warm up idle scheduled for forty hours from now? I do not require your time or effort. I can give Crewmember Hully a device to collect the data for me."

"When you are finished today you are finished, Cadet." Ping stared with more than a hint of challenge, almost a hope that Spock might argue.

Spock knew this sort of unyielding attitude well. Overlander had suggested Spock inform the chief that they had discussed the request. But that wasn't a logical way to proceed. If Overlander wished to issue a command to Ping, she would do so directly. For Spock to relay something as soft as an opinion on the reasonableness of an action from both of their superiors he would have to decide the concept of strict hierarchy did not apply.

Spock nodded deeply to the engineering chief, joined Hully in suiting up. Emergency jumpsuits were made of heavier material than the usual suits, and they had awkward hoops at the joints to keep them moveable should they end up under interior pressure.

The engine bay was no longer an abstractly shaped open space surrounded by girders. It was half filled with a complex, bulky, looming machine covered in kilometers of wiring carefully tacked on or running in conduits on the orthogonal, snaking between access panels and boxes. The surface bulged with irregular shapes smoothed over with sprayed on dampening rubber. Spock had expected the unit to be symmetric and on the whole it was, but in the arrangement of its panels and exterior control units, it was haphazard and biased toward the port side.

It also barely fit. It was being swung into the bay, into its place on the framing, in a series of exact maneuvers.

Yellow lights flashed. The glare of them streaked along the metal bulkheads, bouncing off every curved object. A klaxon blared. Hully ignored it, trooped along the fore bay bulkhead, squirming behind girders rather than take the wider route aft, where the engine would eventually be seated. Encroaching on that space would set off an alarm once the klaxons had sounded. In concert with these alarms, their activities would cease and restart throughout their install window.

Spock climbed to the top of the truss, slowing every third step up to hook and unhook his redundant tether lines. He replaced an out of spec unit, a quick unlatch and relatch. When he had finished, the klaxon was sounding. He had to wait for the alarms to go silent before climbing down since he had to do so on the aft side of the truss. From up here he could see along the port side of the open bay and out to the stars. Ships and drones passed by the slotted opening, lit by the space station.

When the all clear sounded, Spock returned with practiced ease to the deck level. Hully was working on the third sensor, a low tolerance install. She had pulled off her suit glove to mount the sensor unit to a laser jig and was adjusting the jig with impatient movements. Spock pulled up the installation diagram on his padd, held it out for her to view it. She explained in a rush how to establish the baseline for the distances. Her voice was low, amplified by the mic inside her hood to an dulled waver.

Once set, the jig burned the mounting holes, but at lower power than the bigger cutters they usually used, so the two of them crouched at the base of the girder, waiting. Hully, despite their stillness was sweating drips onto the faceplate of her suit. Spock considered asking her if something was wrong. Unlike previous install sessions, she did not seem angered by the chief or one of the ensigns who had teased her. She seemed elsewhere, yet oddly focussed and rushed.

They had nine units to install, mostly along the bay's fore deck. While they worked, shouts echoed hollowly in the decreasing space. The klaxons went off for minutes at a time, quieted again, always preceded by flashing warning lights. While the jig was cutting, Spock watched the fore face of the massive engine swinging down atop them centimeters at a time before halting, yawing to the sound of massive servos, translating along tracks, then rotating again, ever closer into place.

Hully locked unit seven into place with a metallic click. The two of them were perched on the corner of the lowest cross beam on the port side, four meters off the deck. Spock took out his padd to register the sensor on it, verify that it was responding properly, collect what data he could. A klaxon sounded with no flashing yellow light preceded it. The world turned ninety degrees with a roar. Spock's padd ripped from his gloved hands and jerked on its tether in sync with Hully's body doing the same beside him.

Spock's suit stiffened, puffed. The air screamed, howled around the corners of the truss and resonated across the fabric of Spock's emergency EV suit. Hully's arm reached up, swept toward the truss. Her suit was not filling properly, was fluttering like a windsock from the sleeve. Spock reached for her tether just as it swung away from him so that he missed it. He leaned far over, took hold of the truss where there was a throughhole his fingers could hold onto. He swung out. His legs caught in the wind like rushing water swaying him violently. He reached her tether, heaved on it, hooked one boot around the truss, one knee. He hauled in hand over hand. The tether was only a meter and a half long, but in the roar, with poor traction between it and his gloves, it might have been ten times that.

He grabbed her suit's hang strap behind the hood, pulled her toward the beam nearly vertical to the deck. Even with Vulcan strength he had to heave twice to get himself and her on the far side of the forces resisting their movement. He wedged himself at a forty-five degree angle between the truss and the bulkhead, fumbled with her suit, finally simply yanked her ungloved sleeve down hard enough he could seal off the sleeve behind the rings at the wrist. Her suit puffed.

Spock breathed heavily into his hood, momentarily fogging the faceshield. For the first time ever he was grateful for earth-normal oxygen. The rush of air in the engine bay fell away, no longer whipped at them. The warning lights still flashed but the klaxons were barely audible, dulled by the lack of air. Spock adjusted the position of his feet on the truss, braced himself more firmly to hold himself and Hully suspended above the deck but wedged so that neither the ship's artificial gravity nor any additional rush of exiting air would yank them from it.

Hully moved an arm, shifted her hooded head on his chest. Spock helped her roll over, to wedge herself, take her own weight. She fumbled at her chest one-handed where she'd hooked her suit's glove through an elastic hoop. The rush of air continued to quiet. She insisted on putting the glove on. Spock held the pinched sleeve up for her, so she could latch the glove onto the wrist hoops. It clicked soundlessly into place. He slowly let go of her suit sleeve to let air in. The glove puffed, held. With a flailing motion, she shoved her hand back down her sleeve and into the glove.

She put the glove to her hooded face, held it there. He could hear her over the mic repeating, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Spock was still partly holding her up. His core muscles were fatiguing from the force necessitated by the awkward angle. He looked up to see if he could reach any support points above them, judged the other distances side to side, then down. His padd was still dangling on its tether. He had never noticed its weight before now.

"I do not know what you are apologizing for," Spock said.

He braced his left foot and used her tether to pull the two of them toward the upright post where they'd been working. There was a wide metal cowl plate at the vertical girder that led to an isolation bumper, then into the bulkhead. He guided her backwards to it. She wedged herself into the small space, leaned forward to rest her hood on the upright, put her hands over her face plate. Over the next minute, she pulled tighter into a ball and began sobbing without reserve.

Spock lowered himself precariously beside her, put a hand on her back but could not put pressure on flesh, just the elastic air inside the suit.

"May I ask what is the matter?"

She didn't reply, or even shake her head. The suits began to shrink. The klaxon's voice trickled through the void as air returned, grew louder.

Spock's hood radio crackled. The status lights shifted on their own to indicate general broadcast. The first officer's voice came across, harried. "Killington, check in."

Another voice. "Present. Uninjured."

Another name, another check in. Hully dropped her hands, let them hang limp. Tears were slipping in flat rivulets on her cheeks. Spock thought he now comprehended the metaphoric comparisons to a dam opening.

Hully's name crackled over the mic. She replied in a thick voice that she was present and unharmed. She fumbled with the switch at the base of her hood, pushed the radio to local, sniffled hard.

Two other names, then Spock's. In order of rank, apparently. The radio cut out. The klaxons shut down, although the lights still flashed. It fell quiet in the impulse engine bay aside from the blowers bringing the pressure back to a full one atmosphere. Hully rested her head on the vertical girder again. The electrical activity of her muscles spoke of hopeless aching frustration.

Spock also set his mic to local. "Can I assist you?"

"I didn't react like this after it happened. It's been months." This brought a new flood of tears. "I thought I was okay."

Spock sat down on the L beam rather than crouch. Hully was still wedged into the inside the larger fold of the upright and the isolation bumper, seemed to be bracing herself as thoroughly as possible without regard to comfort, or perhaps bracing was the comfort.

* * *

Commander Overlander strode into engineering. The senior engineering officers were standing before the large control board showing scans of the impulse engine bay and exterior shots along with raw numbers from monitors and sensors that were temporary for the install process.

"Chief, what the hell's going on?"

Ping's assistant, Levandre, replied, "Crane appears to have struck the field emitter and the redundant one at the hull wasn't beefy enough to handle full pressure with the abstract shape of the opening it had to deal wtih."

She looked over the displays. "Pressure's rising."

Levandre glanced at the chief. "Station did that. Slapped a set of fields on us as soon as their leak detectors went off. They also asked if we needed an air pump, but we're coming back up fast enough." He flipped through the scans of the bay, port side, starboard, fore at deck level. Figures stood on gantries, waiting with heads down for the signal to resume work.

Levandre added, "No reports of injuries."

Overlander snapped straighter, glanced at the interior scans across the bottom of the display. "Our cadet is in there."

Levandre switched views on the corner display. Two figures in EMEV suits were perched on the forward engine mount on the port side. One of them appeared to be comforting the other, leaning close, arm around the other. Overlander couldn't tell them apart in the hooded suits. The Vulcan was nearly as slight as the lithe Hully and with one of them bunched up and wedged into the L beam, she couldn't compare their sizes.

Comm cut in, "Station wants to know if we're keeping their field emitters for the time being."

"If they'll let us, we will. Ask them how old the case of scotch needs to be. It's coming out of our chief's budget."

The assistants gave each other pained glances, shifted their feet.

Overlander said, "Chief, reset track and crane parameters from current positioning and do a dry run on the model for getting that beast in place, make sure we can still get it in from where it is now."

"Yes, Commander." He stepped left to the control panel, reconfigured it.

Overlander returned her attention to the figures on the cross truss. She spoke quietly. "Get me a pickup on that."

Levandre touched a few switches, checked another display, touched another. The sound switched to the distinct breathiness of a hood mic.

"… I don't know," Hully said. "I couldn't do anything. I couldn't reach anybody. There's nothing you can do. It's your friends but you are helpless." She sniffled, straightened to stretch out one leg to let it dangle. The suits were almost back to normal, loose at the joints. "I don't know how to stop crying. I don't know what's wrong with me."

"Want a mic in?" Levandre asked.

"Looks like Hully's broken down. She was on Ranger during the hull breech." Overlander shook her head. "We don't even have pysch on board right now. Have comm request someone from the station when they're through with the emergency response team coordination."

Spock's voice, "I do not think there is anything wrong. This seems a perfectly normal response of a feeling being." He took hold of her arm and held it. "One gets too busy to attend to attend to the response, and it appears to wait for its turn. With great patience, it waits."

Hully's hood nodded. Her voice sounded almost laughing. "Yeah."

"Switch off the audio," Overlander said. "Hully seems to be in good hands for the moment. Someone start a computer-run inspection of the engine cladding comparing now to before the breech. Make sure nothing broke loose and did any damage."

* * *

Hully was sitting hunched, feet out, gloved hands upright in her lap, fingers curled. Spock checked his tether lines, found his padd still swinging. He hooked it back on his belt. He should not have carried the large one, wondered now why it had seemed like a good idea. He leaned down to locate a lower hitch point for his second tether in preparation for departing.

"We're still on a stoppage," Hully said.

"That precludes climbing down to the deck?" Spock was thinking it best to get Hully to someone who could aid her professionally, but did not want to say that.

"Unless you need medical, yes. They need to know where everyone is while things get sorted out."

The side of Spock's leg, specifically the vastus lateralis muscle of his quadriceps, had gotten bruised but he did not consider it worthy of emergency attention. He considered exaggerating it in the interest of getting Hully to sickbay. But she had calmed considerably once he made her understand that he did not think poorly of her reaction.

They sat side by side. A servo started up somewhere aft-top of the engine, then cut out again, a sound that would have been lost in the earlier general noise.

Dangling the weight of his leg over the edge of the truss prodded at Spock's injury. He touched the area, bent his leg up to take the strain off it.

She watched him do this, looked away again.

The forward center hatch swished open and a suited pair appeared. The medical bands on their upper arms reflected the work lights almost blindingly. With intentional motions, they tethered themselves to the deck rail. Hully straightened from leaning over to look at them. Her body tensed with nerves, then as the pair approached their location, with anger.

The hooded faces stopped, looked up at the two of them there on the truss. One of them said, "Hey, Hully." His voice was audible both over the local radio and through his hood.

Spock swung out to the side and switched his tether to the vertical rail to climb down to the deck, found the solidity of it to be more of a relief than expected. He waited there for Hully to follow. She hesitated, frowning in a way that threatened to become despair again, then pushed forward off the truss and made her way down.

"I'm messing up your install," she muttered.

"I will remain here in the engine bay and see if I will be allowed to complete it."

Hully nodded, daisy chained herself to one of the med team's tethers, and ambled out with them.

Spock stood alone on the deck looking up at the leading surface of the engine. He already had every tracing on the surface memorized, but could not seem to commit to memory the sheer presence of it hanging over him.

It was sixteen minutes before a voice sounded on Spock's radio. It was Lavendre, Ping's assistant. "What's your status, Cadet?"

"I require eleven minutes and five seconds to complete the last two sensor installations. They are all at deck level."

There was a pause. "I'll give you an override on the stoppage. You are less in the way with things stopped than you will be when we restart."

"Thank you, sir."

Spock made his way to the first location, taking more care with the positioning of the tethers than before when they had been perfunctory and theoretical. Crouching made his leg hurt, which had the benefit of forcing his mind into clarity without additional logical discipline. He worked with calm efficiency as if being tested and observed.

Spock finished seven seconds ahead of his estimate. On other shifts, Hully had done a verbal check out before departing the bay. Spock keyed his mic and made the request. A voice he didn't recognize told him it was logged and he could exit.

Engineering Main was busy and stressed. Spock slipped into the locker area and de-suited, put his files in order.

The task board was surrounded by engineering officers working out new timelines, arguing, making verbal gibes at each other. Spock did not wish to interrupt to log his task completed, so he waited a meter back.

Someone looked up, a female Ensign. "Sensors completed?"

"Yes, sir." Spock held out a tape. "The unit mesh ids and tolerance tests."

The woman took the tape, looked at him longer than necessary, then looked away at the board and marked his task completed for him.

Spock stepped out into the corridor. He had lost his required escort and wondered if he should have mentioned that to the ensign while he had her attention. Their overlooking of the problem did not excuse his own omission. On the other hand, it might justify him locating his escort. Given Hully's emotional state, he did not wish to depart this final time without a last word. He was not competent with human emotion, but this decision he felt relatively confident about.

In sickbay there was an engineering crewmember being treated for a crushed hand, but no visible Hully. The CMO looked up at Spock. He was dark skinned with tightly curled short hair that stood out longer in the front.

"Come on in, have a seat on the bed there. I'll be just a moment."

The doctor held the crewmember's arm steady on a movable tray while the nurse sprayed it with thin layers of hardening foam. Spock looked at the nearby bed, and having been ordered to, lowered it enough to sit on the edge of it.

The nurse wrapped the crewmember's hand in gauze tape which sank into the foam and hardened.

The doctor's dark brown eyes found Spock again. Unlike most everyone else, he fixed on Spock's face and didn't obviously take in Spock's cadet uniform.

"I was looking for crewmember Hully, sir," Spock said.

"She's in private conference."

"Do you have an estimate for how long that will take?"

The man shook his head. "No."

"May I wait for a time?" Spock had skipped his morning Basic Federation Languages class to perform this last install shift, but he didn't want to skip Propulsion which began in seventy two minutes. He could review the day's extra readings while he waited and if Hully did not appear, it would be the same as if he had returned to the Academy to do the readings of the extra materials.

The CMO glanced at the bed monitor behind Spock, pulled a Feinberger off his belt and approached with it.

"I do not require attention, sir," Spock said, hearing himself sounding peeved and isolating the emotion right after. Something about this human's attitude reminded Spock of Oplack in Starfleet Intel. He sensed the same unusually strong assumption of physical authority over others.

The CMO waved the Feinberger before Spock's chest, smiled. "There is that about Vulcans. How much they hate being scanned." He looked at the display on the end of the device for many seconds.

"I simply wish to speak to crewmember Hully before departing the Apollo for the last time, sir."

The CMO continued to look at the readings, brow lowering. "Get up on the table."

Spock suppressed his reaction before speaking this time. "I do not require treatment, sir."

"I didn't ask for you input. I want more readings."

"I am not test subject, sir."

The two nurses and the engineering crewman were all watching them now.

"You have a bit of a chip on your shoulder there, Cadet. And you are injured. And that's an order."

Spock bottled his anger up rather than put it aside and out of mind. He felt it hardening him, stiffening his movements, his face. He turned, lay back, stared unmoving at the overhead. Another scanner was brought out and used on his leg.

"Bone's bruised, you know," the CMO cheerfully said.

"I am aware, sir."

"Must smart." He reached over Spock's head to adjust the monitor, stood back to watch the dials.

The doctor asked for a kit and one of the nurses brought a tray. The CMO put on gloves, unsealed Spock's pant leg from the cuff.

"Get a gel pac, cool only, not cold, see if we can limit the remaining damage."

A pack was pressed to Spock's leg bringing body shuddering relief despite Spock's already blocking the pain, or believing he did.

"What's your name, Cadet?"

"Spock, sir."

"I'm Doctor M'Benga. You have some rather odd readings."

"I am sure I do, sir."

M'Benga crossed his arms. "The question is, are you in very bad shape and masking it, or are you that unusual."

"I am that unusual, sir."

M'Benga stepped closer. "Maybe I should surgically remove that chip from your shoulder. Do you a favor."

Spock didn't reply and was rewarded after thirty seconds with the doctor stepping away to check on his other patient.

Spock remained as he was for eighteen minutes. He was allowed his padd to do his readings as long as he promised not to move.

M'Benga returned, held out his hand. "Give me that." He set the padd aside. "Looks like two hours of healing trance will clear this up."

"I have class in fifty one minutes, sir. I cannot be absent."

"I'll log you as under treatment. It will be fine. You can watch the recording later, in 3D even. You won't miss a thing."

Spock sat up on his elbows. "You are ordering me to remain, sir?"

M'Benga seemed amused. "Yes, I am. There is no logical reason for you to go around injured." He requested a neuro stim from the nurse, held it up. "See? I'm ready when you come out of it. Trance, Cadet. You seem strangely unfamiliar with the concept of orders."

Spock rested back on the examination table. "I have never missed Propulsion. Commander Absom is brutally critical when anyone does. I am trying to follow orders."

"I have priority, Cadet, over all other command lines. When I want it, that is. It will be fine." He checked the dials again, brows lowering. He sounded lost in the readings when he said, "Initiate a trance. I'll be here."


	15. Need, Part 4

Chapter 15 - Need, Part 4

"What happened to my cadet?" Overlander asked.

M'Benga looked up from the desk monitor, turned to the diagnostic bed where Spock lay. "He had a serious contusion. He's in a healing trance. It's a meditative method Vulcans use to speed heal."

Overlander approached. Spock lay on his back, fingers gently curled as if fully relaxed, head canted to the side.

"He's beautiful. Isn't he?"

M'Benga's head snapped up. He stood and approached the other side of the bed. "Commander, he is aware of everything going on around him. He's not asleep or unconscious."

Overlander hadn't interacted with the Apollo's CMO besides introducing herself when the Apollo arrived for the refit. "I don't mind if he hears me say that."

M'Benga put his chest out as he took a deep breath. "Perhaps a bit more restraint, Commander. We need to, overall, encourage more Vulcans in Starfleet."

"You'd be surprised what lengths I'm going to toward that end, Doctor. But I appreciate you looking out for him. I actually came for an update on Hully."

"I believe she is in her quarters. I have not yet seen a status report from the personnel you called over from the station so they may still be with her."

"Hopefully things go well. I'd like to talk to her myself, so call me when you hear from them." Overlander tipped her chin in Spock's direction. "You can handle this one?"

"I interned on Vulcan, sir."

"Did you? So did my CMO on the Ranger, Chapel. You know her?"

He crossed his arms and solemnly shook his head. "I do not."

"She's probably ten years younger than you, maybe why you didn't cross paths. She's still floating around waiting for an assignment she likes enough to take. You ought to look her up."

He stared.

She smiled again. "I just meant for coffee and to swap stories. Or, that's what I mean now that I see you dislike things getting personal."

He crossed his arms. "You apparently have a tendency to get too personal, Madame Commander. I do feel compelled to point that out now given you are widely expected to be given the first officer's position when we head out."

She suppressed the smile from imagining him and Chapel on a date given how tailor made they seemed for each other. "Duly noted, Doctor."

They both looked at Spock, who hadn't moved a hair.

"How long will he be like that?" she asked.

"Another hour or so." He took out a scanner, used it, put it away again. "About that."

"The install is going to restart in half an hour." She started to leave. "Tell him I said good job today."

"He heard you."

"Tell him again anyway. He deserves to hear it twice."

* * *

Spock stepped into the Propulsion class seventy five minutes and twelve seconds late. He felt the instructor's focused attention on his back as he mounted the steps up the side of the auditorium. He also felt an unexpectedly sharp complaint from the seventy percent healed contusion in the deep tissue of his right leg. Logically, once he had been forced to remain in sickbay, he should have healed himself more completely. He had instead risen early for reasons he'd determined were logical at the time, but were likely emotional, or worse than that, egotistical.

P'Losiwst's eager gaze led him to the seat she had reserved for him. Without a sound, Spock took out his padd and settled in. The corner of his padd screen still showed the initial readings from the sensors. He'd managed to collect more data while in sickbay. He had days of readings for some, hours for the last set. His small task on the Apollo was finished. He had very little interesting data for his report, which would now be reduced to a simple notation that he had performed a basic hardware installation. And his padd's case halves no longer seemed to interlock properly, as if it had suffered structural damage.

Spock switched screens to the day's lectures, turned his attention to the topic of field force mechanics.

Absom noticed Spock's attention, seemed to be waiting for it. He stopped mid-sentence, raised his white tufted head to speak upward. "Bold of you, Cadet, bothering to come this late. Very bold. After class. See me."

"Yes, sir."

Beside Spock, P'Losiwst hunched over her notetaking as if to avoid attention.

Absom called on Spock every other question, asking him four in total. Spock did well on the first two, but the last two were from the readings he'd only skimmed that morning before heading to the Apollo and he had been forced to admit his answers were partial. The other students seemed relieved Spock was taking all the instructor's attention. No others glanced back at him at any point, as they did when a student badly botched an answer.

At the end of the class time Spock made his way down to the front. P'Losiwst came beside him, angled a pained expression up at him. He gestured that she should go on. Five students were already around the instructor requesting help on the big assignment due next class. Absom had made it clear that mistakes due to misunderstanding instructions were the most worthy of wild derision, which had indeed changed student behavior to avoid making them.

P'Losiwst remained beside Spock. He worried that she would be late. He expected to be dealt with last, perhaps dragged to an office to be cited in some way. Missing core class sessions or more than three non-core sessions was, by the rules, a serious offense, but one that was handled casually by most instructors unless egregious.

Absom ignored the group around him, cut a line through the surrounding students with his arm and pointed at Spock. The students parted, turned.

"If you are going to be that late. Do not come at all. It's disruptive. As well as disrespectful."

Spock bowed. "I apologize, sir. I deeply appreciate this class and did not want to miss the entire period."

Absom dropped his arm and narrowed his eyes. "Do you have an excuse of any sort?"

The students still remaining all fixed their eyes on Spock. Spock's annoyance at having been ordered to remain on the Apollo for treatment returned fully along with potential embarrassment for the weakness it implied.

"I was ordered to remain elsewhere, sir. I explained to the officer in question that I must attend class but was denied and informed it would be officially logged that I was held away."

"You have one job, Cadet. Class. It's quite simple Who, may I ask, ordered you to be elsewhere?"

Spock rendered himself calmer. It wouldn't do to reveal additional weakness while admitting weakness. "The CMO of the Apollo, sir. He insisted that he had authority over anyone else, although his rank of lieutenant is lower than yours."

"The Apollo." Absom's gaze drifted away. "She's in dock being readied for the first H9 Impulse engine install. Some variation of the Re-Tourno."

"Yes sir. The H9 Re-Tourno 4.3 Field. It was put into place today. Or the process was started today. I do not know if it completed."

"Should only take eleven or so hours."

"There was an atmospheric breech in the engine bay that halted the installation."

"Not surprising. Why they don't just install into an evacuated bay, I don't know. Something about full EV suits being too cumbersome to work in. So, an atmospheric breech is why you were late? Is that what you are telling me? Or just hoping I'll assume that even if it's not true?"

"Not precisely, sir. I was given an override to the stoppage and completed my tasks well inside a time sufficient to unsuit and checkout and return." Spock felt his shoulders hunching, put his hands behind his back, forced himself to relax. "But I was not allowed to depart. Even after I informed the CMO that I could forego treatment—"

Absom waved airily. "We're past that part, Cadet. A medical lieutenant can indeed override me. Everyone knows that except you. I want to know what task you had in the Apollo's impulse engine bay."

"I was installing sensors for a more detailed modeling of the new engine's resonances, sir, than would otherwise be available. Seventy three sensors on the engine mounting frame."

Absom's face softened. "Really? That much data." He looked around the messy front table beside him. "Who's the lead on the Apollo refit?"

"Chief Ping, sir."

Absom searched on the table. He picked up a palm sized padd, began sketching on it with his finger. "What accuracy of position sensor?"

"Ten to the minus fourteen, sir." Spock watched him madly sketch for a time, seeming to have lost track of everything else. Spock bit his lips. When Absom slowed, Spock said, "Sir, my portion of the project has completed. If you were to obtain the test run data, would you be so generous as to pass a copy on to me?"

"What?" Absom looked up, looked surprised they were all there. "Oh. Yes. Ask me again. Though."

Spock said, "The idle test is scheduled for this week, as is a five hundred kilometer straightline run at very low velocity." Spock very much wanted this data now that he could see a chance of obtaining it. His report could contain a draft model for multiple baselines, something actually meaningful.

Absom tapped on his padd. "Yes, of course it is. That's standard shakedown."

The other students were looking at Spock, studying him as they did in the first days, as if he were a new and interesting thing. Spock hadn't considered how these minor, mostly tedious tasks on the Apollo could be viewed by others. It seemed it was less the actual task than exposure to the place and process that was significant. But he wondered if this was helping him earn a place here, or simply setting him more apart.

P'Losiwst tugged on a corner of Spock's sleeve. They were imminently going to be late for the next class.

"Can I be dismissed, sir?" Spock asked the instructor.

"Yes. But for the record." Absom looked up. "Sucked into or nearly sucked into open space is the only excuse I'll accept for being late. Everyone understand that?"

* * *

Kirk beamed down from the Hampton, checked into a dorm room in the building uphill from the previous one he'd been assigned to. He had a view only of the adjoining dorm and the reflections of the evening sky on its upper windows. He estimated a range of time for Spock completing Academy tasks, felt both dread and anticipation at seeing him.

The desk monitor chimed. Kirk reached behind him and bent it upward it to view it from where he sat on the table with his feet on the window seat. Just a notification of the change in status on his reports from the Tantalus mission. Accepted. Filed.

Kirk had been accompanying Graham on an inspection round when the patients were offloaded at Earth Station Three. The Hampton's CMO thought Noel had regained some low level function and was cautiously optimistic that some of her personality would be retained in full treatment. It had been painful to watch her gurney drift out. It was reasonable to honor her. She'd done her best to steer Dr. Adams to see the error of his ways and had been nearly destroyed in doing so. Kirk didn't want his feelings to encompass anything more than that.

He twisted the monitor upward farther, checked whether there were transport arrangements on file for him. There weren't.

Kirk rubbed his chin, stared out the window. The quiet oppressed him. He could go to a crowded and loud club. That would drown out the emptiness, the annoyance with himself, all thought. He had a little money again. He checked the time, slid down off the desk.

The music pulsed straight through Kirk's ribcage, thrumming his heart. The strobing, scattering lights made the multi-level floor seem unsubstantial. Kirk leaned back against the bar, caught a sliver of his reflection in a mirrored pillar. He'd worn the still highly fashionable outfit from his review panel and barely recognized himself. It had a high collar and subtle detailing at the edges and down the front and it spoke of casual wealth that he did not possess. And it was cut perfectly for his currently lean frame.

Beings from around the Federation crowded the bar or danced wearing almost nothing but metal, a little fabric, and sheer glowcloth, Kirk was almost too old to be here. That didn't stop women and a few men from slowing as they passed him on the way to get drinks, looking him up and down then fixing on his eyes in expectation of a signal, any signal. Kirk smiled at most and looked away. A few were persistent, returned, drinks in hand and stood close enough to be heard. He danced with the leggier ones. He imbibed heady exotic perfumes that were as potent as any Rigellian psychic wiles. He stared into perfect eyes set in perfect faces atop perfect bodies. He smiled, made light conversation, flirted, made others smile. He could take his pick home if he wanted, would have already done so, usually. But he didn't belong to himself that way any longer and felt uneasy, as if either everything were about to be lost, or nothing was as substantial as he had imagined.

Kirk returned to his dorm room at oh two hundred. He'd run into other Starfleet officers, strangers to him but gregariously home on leave, and had joined them for a second late dinner that made his fancy outfit snug around his middle.

Spock was at the desk in Kirk's dorm room, bulky supercomputer-capable padd propped up before him, displaying plain text. He lifted his head. "James."

Kirk nodded, drew in his lips, strode around the room before going to wash up. The basic Starfleet soap didn't diminish the scent of myriad perfumes clinging to him.

Spock watched Kirk with emotions apparently retracted, collecting data. Kirk sat on the corner of the bed near him. Spock took in Kirk's outfit with a glance, incredible mind working. He breathed in slightly deeper, likely catching the scent of the club, but his expression didn't shift. This left Kirk feeling less certain and maybe annoyed.

Spock stood up and sat on the bunk beside Kirk, hands clasped. Kirk looked at the floor under the desk. He wanted that calm to wash over him, but it didn't. He wondered if it was his fault it wasn't, somehow. He hadn't realize how much he was counting on it to soothe him. Spock seemed content to wait indefinitely for him to speak.

Kirk rubbed his forehead. "I think I just want to go to bed. To sleep." He stood up.

"Of course." Spock remained as he was. "I sense you wish me to depart, but I wish to remain."

"Don't get used to me being here."

Spock didn't react. "I will not do so. Do you have transport arrangements at this time?"

"Not that I know of." Kirk could hear his own clipped voice. "You'll be the first to know when I do." Kirk looked Spock over. He looked young in the muted light from the lamp on the wall over the desk. "You should go. Get some real rest so you do well."

"I'd prefer to remain."

Kirk stepped closer to better look him over. Spock raised his chin, looked younger, guileless looking up at him. Kirk said, "You're doing that nonemotional thing still. Like you don't feel anything."

"I am practicing a pairing of advanced disciplines. The result does indeed shunt emotion out of the immediate mind."

Kirk looked over the intricate seams on the shoulders of Spock's academy uniform. "You're probably better off that way. Emotions can be a lie."

Spock stood up, held his hands at his sides. "It is essential, as I am attempting to make a purely logical decision. Which is not easy regarding you."

"Don't put out the effort. Go on back to the Academy for the night. Act like an real cadet for once."

Spock stood with the darkened dorm window behind him, looking and sounding absurdly formal for where he stood. "That is possible decision one: doing as you request."

Kirk straightened himself, found some anger. "Go to the Academy where you belong, Spock. You've got fifteen months probably without me ahead of you. Start getting used to not having me around."

"Possible decision two is fetching Healer Zienn."

"And then what. Remake me again? Am I never the way I'm supposed to be?"

Spock set his mouth. "I sense you are injured, which is supported by your earlier statement about encountering difficulty on the mission. I can only assume that you were injured in the same fashion the Militants were, although you cannot discuss the mechanism of that injury. My father mentioned at least one of the Militants was nearly driven to full disfunction, so I am yet more concerned about damage you may have sustained."

Kirk snorted, wanted to be mocking. "Listen to you." He shook his head and stepped away, to mindlessly look over his few personal belongings. They would still all fit in a single duffle. "Spock. Go. I'm afraid I'm going to say something to you that I'll regret if you keep pushing."

Spock shifted. "If you need to speak, it would be logical to do so."

"Spock." Kirk dropped the bag, squared himself to face Spock. "No." Everything felt fragile. He wanted to say, I don't know what we have. What this is between us. It's an illusion. He said, "Stay if you want. But I need to sleep."

Spock considered this, spoke without inflection. "If I fetch Zienn will you allow a meld?"

Kirk stalked away again, tossed his hand. "You always think it's that easy. That's a mistake and I don't want you making those kinds of mistakes. Being stubborn like this like you always are. That is always costly, that mistake." Kirk leaned on the back of a chair. "Spock, melding with Zienn will change nothing." Kirk felt his heart speeding up. "It won't change anything." He swallowed hard, still longing for things he couldn't have and would hate himself to ask for.

Spock reacted, then the reaction was gone. "You are not yourself, James."

"It's after two in the morning."

"Nevertheless."

Kirk turned away, paced to the bed, pulled off his outfit top and held it out in preparation for folding it for packing. "Why don't you wait until tomorrow. At a reasonable time."

"Because you are injured and I do not want you to remain so any longer than necessary."

Kirk looked sidelong at him. "It's not going to make a difference. And then where will you be, Spock? You've got to learn to take care of yourself first."

Spock faintly shook his head. "I do not agree, nor am I able to follow your logic." He took out his communicator, requested a transporter service. "I will return, James."

Kirk tossed his fancy outfit top so it draped over the duffle bag. "Don't say I didn't warn you," he said before Spock disappeared.

* * *

Commander Overlander snapped fully awake at the sound of a communicator chirp. She flipped open the unit, lifted the bedcovers to get it in range of her face.

"Overlander."

"Cadet Spock, Commander. I deeply apologize for the interruption but I require Zienn's attention to a problem. Can you relay a message to him?"

"He's right here. But I will relay since I have to anyway."

There was a lengthy pause of likely embarrassment on Spock's end. Zienn pushed up on his elbows. He looked adorable with the covers draped over his mussed hair.

Spock's voice came over the communicator. "If it is acceptable, I would come and fetch him."

Overlander repeated all this, even though Zienn was perfectly capable of hearing it directly.

Zienn nodded, pushed to sit up, letting blissfully cool air rush in under the covers.

"He nodded," Overlander said. "What's your ETA, Cadet?"

"Oh two hundred thirty five."

Overlander tried not to smile at Spock's budding use of military standards because it would come across in her voice. "See you then. Overlander out."

She set the communicator aside and sat up. She was badly overheated. "This is what I get for sleeping with a desert dweller." She rubbed her hair back, contemplated things before swinging out of bed. "Is he calling you instead of his father now?"

Zienn tucked the layers of his robe over each other then pulled them taut and neat below the cinching point. He folded his hands. "I suspect not. But if he is it is no matter."

"You don't mind?" She pulled on a thin t-shirt even though the texture of her artificial body showed through it. She was too hot to put on a bathrobe or a workout shirt.

"If he would consider me as appropriate to such function, I would be honored."

"Huh." She nodded, smiled.


	16. Need, Part 5

Chapter 16 - Need, Part 5

Kirk paced his dorm room, wished he'd gone for a run rather than to the dance club. The room felt cottony quiet and his body felt penned in by it. He wished instead for the laxity that followed heavy exercise.

The door chimed and opened. Spock led Zienn inside. Kirk felt a pang of guilt at himself for the situation. He should always be stronger than his circumstances.

"Leave us alone, Spock," Kirk said.

Spock stood straighter, looked to Zienn who nodded after a pause. Spock looked like he wanted to argue, but he went out, motions stiff.

Thirty seconds passed in silence. Zienn appeared serious and strong, unwavering. Kirk appreciated this, let himself be visually examined.

"Spock tells me you were injured, but he could not say in what way."

Kirk sat heavily on the bed, pressed his hands together in his lap. "I am, but it's the least of my problems at the moment."

"Does that make it logical to leave it unaddressed?"

"Your Standard has gotten really good."

Zienn nodded, waited.

"I hate doing this with you." Kirk tossed his hand. "I feel like I'm cheating on Spock."

"You realize Spock shares his mind with me nearly every session we have."

Kirk looked sideways at the reflections in the darkened window. "That doesn't seem the same."

"Despite it being exactly the same." Zienn lifted his head. "What befell you?"

"This has to remain secret. I was put in a machine that empties all thought. Or does so at low power. At higher power, some thought returns, as part of a fight for survival, enough awareness to long for anything to fill the void the machine creates." Kirk frowned. "I'm doing better. Spock is overreacting."

"You understand why he overreacts."

"Yes, of course." Kirk smiled painfully. "Of course I understand. But you have to understand how intimate what you intend feels to me. It's not the same if it's you and Spock melding since you are intended as a race to participate."

"Only with very close family. We do not treat it as casually as you suggest." Zienn stood looking at him without expression. "Your emotions and your logic are unusually tangled, for you."

Kirk looked away. "You doing this for Spock? Sacrificing like this with someone so illogical?"

"My preferences and motives are not up for consideration."

Kirk turned his head to the window, smiled wryly. "Go on, then, let's get this over with."

Zienn stepped forward and pressed his fingers to Kirk's right temple without preamble. Kirk felt his will become indistinct. He thought of the neutralizer, how each additional battle with it had caused him so much more pain, had only made him fight harder, bringing more pain. He sat passively, let his mind become another's, not so much with trust as with cynicism about his choices.

Zienn withdrew. Like the machine, Kirk had no sense of time passing. Zienn clasped his hands before him, looked down at Kirk for a while.

"Your thoughts are much darker than before. I cannot see evidence for the machine causing this directly, only indirectly."

"I didn't feel so lonely before. The machine opened an empty void in me. It's still there."

"That void is not new. You have only been made aware of it."

Kirk closed his eyes, held in a laugh. He raised his head and opened his eyes on a random spot on the wall. If that void had always been there then he'd do as he always did and live with it.

Zienn's measured tones cut through Kirk's bolstering himself. "I will take Spock to the temple. After a year, I expect, his dislike of melds will have eased, if not his aversion to bonding."

"Don't do that to him." Kirk felt his eyes burning. "Let him be." Kirk stood up, wanted to get more angry with Zienn, but couldn't manage it when faced with his generousness and his self-contained poise.

"May I suggest for you a human expert in untangling emotions?" Zienn said. "I agree with Spock that you are not yourself."

"I'll be out of Spock's way soon enough. He needs time away from me more than anything else. Give him some room to grow."

Kirk folded his things into his duffle bag, putting the items into a vertical row so he could see the edges of them.

Zienn said, "I will find Spock now and send him back to you. If there is nothing else you wish of me."

Kirk bit his lip, turned. "Thank you for trying. Spock insisted on fetching you despite my telling him to wait."

Zienn bowed. "I am at Spock's call."

Kirk felt molten and chilled. "I'm glad you of all people will be here. I trust you to take good care of him without limiting him."

"I will have to expose him to much he doesn't wish to be. Yes." Zienn stood before the door. "From Spock's description you are going to a place of violence."

Kirk looked down at his things in the duffle. "Yes."

Zienn nodded, gave a Vulcan greeting, which Kirk quietly returned. Then he was gone.

Spock returned half an hour later, brusque and bringing the scent of foggy outside air with him.

"Zienn informed me that there was little he could do for you."

Kirk turned, held his jaw taut against saying, I told you so. "I really should sleep."

Spock looked him over, at each of his eyes, at his face. He nodded. "May I remain and do my studies?"

"Yeah, sure."

"I will go if you prefer."

"I said, 'Yes, you can stay.'"

Kirk washed up, stripped, slipped into bed in a darkness punctuated by the light from Spock's padd. Unusually, light was leaking in a streak from the side of it. Kirk sat up in bed, watching him.

"What are you working on?"

"Readings in work flow architecture."

"You neglecting your other classes?"

Having failed to answer two questions properly in Propulsion, Spock had to answer, "Perhaps."

"Fundamentals are important too, Spock. Don't get ahead of yourself."

Spock put his hands around the padd's body, made it click. When he let go, it clicked again and the streak of light returned. It was his heavy, expensive padd.

"You take that apart one too many times?"

Spock let go and put his arms at his sides, hands on his thighs. "I am not one hundred percent certain what happened to it."

Kirk plotted the course of their conversation, could feel it inextricably continuing along the same canyon. He wondered if Loomis was what Zienn considered an expert in human emotion. Kirk would be far away soon and it wouldn't matter. But maybe leaving like this wasn't the best idea. Things got a hundred times harder to deal with at a distance.

The room was becoming easier to see in the darkness. There were still lights on in the rooms of the dorm across the street. Ships came in and out of orbit at all hours, disgorging and scooping up personnel. Spock sat fixed at the desk as if on duty, head bent to read the glowing type highlighting his face.

Kirk lay down on his side facing the wall. He wondered what was really eating at him. Maybe it was feeling he couldn't trust anything, but that wasn't a new problem. He mulled things over a long time without feeling any better, was sucked down into sleep without warning that it was happening.

* * *

Kirk saw Spock off in a breakfast-less rush to class in the morning. Loomis replied to Kirk's message an hour after he sent it, agreed to see him that evening. Kirk wanted to cancel, made himself go for a walk instead. He went outside, walked downhill, away from the Starfleet buildings, caught a tram for a long ride along the shore, just to sense movement and keep his mind at ease.

Once Kirk was deployed in Lohanna everything would be put aside, a justifiable absenteeism from ordinary problems. He'd seen others become addicted to that state of mind, unable later to bear to return to the emotional land of trivialities. In Kirk's experience, people that left too many unresolved things behind before found it hardest to return home fully and functionally. Kirk had never had a home he really wanted to return to, and had never worried quite this way about having to return with both body and soul.

The day was hot. Kirk walked slowly, turned his face into the brine coming off the bay. He looked around himself at the trees canopying the divided roadway, the ground cars, the ships going by in the haze blanketing the water. The crowds grew heavier around an old warehouse redone to hold small restaurants. Children were playing on insect shaped climbing toys deployed to let parents enjoy the outdoor cafes. Kirk watched them for a time, considered getting a pastry even though he'd barely earned one with his walking. He went to the railing by the water, listened to the waves slapping the underside of the pier.

This world, his world, already felt as alien as it was going to be in a few weeks when he had a stream of must-do tasks to attend to, when life or death required that he be intimate with one alien environment after another that he would never see again nor have time to enjoy.

Kirk bought a coffee and a donut, ate it as he watched the ships pass under the bridge. He was going to miss real donuts. He ate this one slowly, biting through the sugary carapace to the airy, flakey fat of it in as small bites as possible, but found the wrapper in his hand empty moments later.

A pair of young children ran up to the railing. The younger one, maybe four, pinned his face between the bars to look out, the girl, maybe six, stood with high decorum peering out as if at her personal domain. Both had Vulcan features, ears and brows, but pale brown hair, human softened foreheads, rounded cheeks. Kirk held his coffee in both hands, stared down at them as if he'd imagined them into existence somehow. He was glimpsing Spock, a younger Spock he ached to know, but could not.

Kirk crouched beside the boy who had looked up to puzzle him out. "Hello," Kirk said in Vulcan.

Kirk proceeded to learn a lot of new vocabulary as the boy pointed out things as they appeared on the water, birds, boats, cars on the bridge. Kirk asked him simple questions which were answered eagerly, rambling and distracted and unabashed. The little girl stood behind her brother in her miniature version of formal robes, hands at her sides, watching Kirk with unblinking reservation.

The parents approached, a gangly human male with a weak chin and a frequent squint, the vulcan woman, dark, olive complected. Her gaze fixed on Kirk's uniform.

Rule one of basic Vulcan family etiquette: address the adults first. Exchange proper introductions, maybe get introduced to the children if the interaction level deems it.

Kirk turned back to the boy, asked him if he saw the sea gulls bobbing on the waves nearby, hoping for something to be tossed from the railing by the cafe. The boy nodded, said he did not know the Vulcan word for them. Kirk asked if the gulls might have personal names they called themselves. The boy's brow furrowed. This was pushing into fantasy, which may be entirely new to him. There was no logical reason for gulls to have individual names. The boy gave him a name, something like "water dove" but seemed unwilling to give out more names, even when prompted with ideas. Kirk continued to ignore the parents, felt much younger doing so, back before Tarsus, back when obnoxious rebellion was a luxury he could afford.

"We have not been introduced," the woman said in Vulcan.

Kirk looked up at her. Smiled. Sighed silently. He had a uniform to represent. He stood, greeted them and introduced himself with a Vulcan salute, tried to keep the temple honorifics to a minimum.

"You have quite an interest in our son, Serran," she indicated the boy.

Kirk felt himself blushing, hoped it was lost in any color he had from the wind and sun. "He reminds me of my boyfriend, Spock."

"Spock?" the man said. "The . . ." He seemed to struggle for words. "The ambassador's son?"

Kirk imagined that anyone having hybrid Vulcan-human children was probably aware of the handful of other Vulcan-human hybrids.

The woman stated properly, "Spock, son of Sarek of Shikahr, of T'Pau of Shikahr?"

Kirk nodded formally. "Yes."

"You're his boyfriend?" The man asked.

"Thank you for not watching the feeds too much," Kirk said. "Yes."

"That's why you're name's familiar."

"I'm a perennial source of scandal," Kirk happily said.

"That must be. Interesting. In that family."

Kirk smiled more. "I'm breaking them into it." He waited to see if this generated more than uncomfortable silence. It didn't.

He turned back to the boy. "I missed seeing Spock when he was young like this." Then thought, young like this and struggling with his brother's abuse and struggling with the Healers' abuse. Kirk's chest tightened. He needed to fix things and had only a few days to do it. Fix himself.

Kirk crouched again, was given a solemn list of names for the other seagulls. He wanted to touch the boy, but knew better. "Been really nice talking to you," Kirk said. He looked to the girl, still standing watch behind her brother. "And you too. I could have used a sister like you."

Kirk bought another donut and washed it down with the remains of his coffee, which he knew, even lukewarm, was going to seem like a distant dream of magical elixir in a few weeks time.

* * *

"I really hate talking to you."

Loomis's face relaxed into a smile after a pause as if remembering expressions were allowed now. "Can't say I don't like honesty. You've got me there."

Kirk adjusted his back on the reclined chair. "I keep taking advantage of you. Another late evening because I didn't give you any warning."

"I could have scheduled you for another day, but it still would have been an evening." Loomis crossed his lean legs. His unusually thick uniform pants made scrunching noises as he moved. He lowered his voice. "Given how my days sometimes go, seeing someone who has ordinary problems helps me reset my understanding for what is normal."

Loomis went on, "I realize it's part of your nature to concern yourself with others, but I want you to feel you can set that aside. Think about yourself for a bit."

Kirk put his hands behind his head, stared at the curved edge of the wall where it met the ceiling.

"Something happened in the last few days, I assume?" Loomis asked.

Kirk looked over sideways. "You look at my file?"

"I did not. I trust you to tell me and it gives me a chance to listen."

"I'm not supposed to speak of it in detail, but your clearance is way better than anyone in my command line. On Tantalus Colony I got exposed to a neural neutralizer, a machine that empties your mind out to the point of longing for your tormentor to keep talking to keep you company. And with no effort, he used that machine to program into me an undying love for someone I'd just met."

Loomis fell unnaturally still.

Kirk smiled. "Wishing you had the big slate now? I'll wait if you want to fetch it." Kirk looked at the ceiling again. "I got cleared on it officially. Commander was adamant I be examined right away for my own professional good." Kirk took a deep breath. "That's not the problem anyway. It just made me realize there are other problems I'd been ignoring. Those are my problem now."

"What makes you think there's another problem?"

Kirk unhooked one of his arms from behind his head, examined his fingers. "I've been lashing out at Spock. Being relentlessly critical." Kirk shook his head and frowned painfully. "Poor kid's just doing his thing. Doing the best he can to juggle his classes. Trying out new disciplines he's learning from the high priest. And I can't. Not. Hit out at him."

"Why do you think you're doing that?"

Kirk ached deep in his chest. "Because I'm leaving? I don't know. I want a meld from him, but melds hurt him."

"You want a meld because of the emptiness you experienced?"

Kirk nodded. "I badly want a meld."

Loomis paused. "You haven't asked him for one?

"No. Melding with Spock would reverse the pain of the experience for me, but at the expense of my independence and his psychic self-determination. Which are important. He suffered two miserable betrothals, too many melds from Healers he couldn't refuse. I can't ask for that from him."

Loomis sat straighter. "I don't see anything unusual in this effort of yours to sacrifice for him. Can you tell me more about what you see as the problem?"

Kirk gave him a pained expression. "I don't like being like this. Taking things out on him. It's not me."

"You're hurting. That makes people poorly behaved. Most people. Ordinary people. Of which you are apparently one. At times."

Kirk pointed his toes, felt his boots resist it. "So, what do I do?"

"You act like there's a switch you can throw."

"There better be. I only have a few days to straighten this out."

"Communication is universally the best answer. And if you can't communicate, honestly tracing out why often leads to the root of the problem. I don't see why that doesn't apply. But you don't want to ask Spock for a meld because he might say yes. Or because he might say no. Which one?"

Kirk let go of a breath. "He'll say yes."

"And you'll get your meld. But that's not actually the problem. So what is?"

Kirk said, "I don't want to hurt him. But I'm doing so. And can't stop. And my God, love is something you can just manufacture out of thin area. What's it mean anyway?"

"You don't want Spock to see this doubt you harbor about your emotions?"

That didn't seem like the whole answer to Kirk. Kirk shook his head. "Do you know what a meld is like? Have you had one?"

Loomis swallowed hard. "No, I have not, I admit."

"It's far more intimate than sex."

"I'd believe that." Loomis clasped his hands over his crossed knee. "You have sex with Spock regularly, however. So this is not about avoiding intimacy. And it's not about hiding your doubts about love. After all, he's a Vulcan and likely doesn't attest to love anyway."

Kirk pinched his bottom lip in his fingers, worked at his lip with his thumb.

Loomis said, "I can see something is there. What are you feeling?"

Kirk didn't answer right away. He was feeling tense in the center of his chest, physically unwell.

"I don't have you wired up," Loomis said. "But I've seen enough people who were that I'm going to estimate that you're scared of something."

"I'd walk into Klingon high command with just a hand phaser if need be."

Loomis sounded amused. "I'm quite certain that I didn't question your courage. Why are you defending it?"

Kirk looked right at Loomis. "I hate talking to you."

Loomis still sounded amused. "I'm glad, honestly, to see there is a normal person inside of the legendary James Kirk."

Kirk expected to snap out a rebuttal to this. But his anger was gone. His will to lash out drained away. Loomis waited, studying him.

"Let's try an exercise. Okay?" Loomis's voice was gentle.

Kirk nodded, rested back and stared at the ceiling again. He felt defeated and empty.

"I'm going to put the programmed love issue aside," Loomis said. "It's not important."

Kirk nodded, found he didn't care, wondered at that. He'd worried over it, felt guilty over it, but it didn't seem that important.

"I'm going to put the intimacy issue aside. It's not important either."

"It's a little important." Kirk's voice sounded small to his ears.

"How so?"

"It's how I connect to him." Kirk blushed faintly. "I mean, really connect. Not just be together."

"And just being together isn't enough?"

Kirk looked at his nails again. "Doesn't seem to be."

"What do you talk about when you are just being together?"

"What he needs to do." Kirk thought over his recent conversations with Spock. "I tell him what to do too much. I can't seem to stop doing that."

"You are far more experienced with Starfleet and the duties he's training for."

Kirk felt a wave of uneasiness again.

"I could detect that without any sensors," Loomis said.

"You normally operate this way. Giving everything away to your patient?" Kirk asked.

"Only with you. Manipulating you backfires, as I discovered." Loomis sat back. "That was fear you were feeling just now. What were you thinking about?"

"Trying to guide Spock." Kirk's eyes felt hot for no reason. "Spock is so damn important." Kirk banked his sudden forcefulness, breathed in, rested his head back on his arm and looked up at the featureless ceiling.

Loomis didn't speak.

"I don't know what I'm doing," Kirk said. "I'm an idiot lieutenant commander with an over-reliance on luck and wishful thinking. Spock is the first of a new race." Kirk patted his own chest. "What do I think I'm doing?"

Loomis uncrossed his legs, leaned forward over his clasped hands. "His father seems to think you are doing fine. Do you not respect his view?"

"He does think that. But he also badly underestimates Spock's future. He has very little faith in him. Spock has the potential to change everything he touches. To be a bridge between the two most important worlds of the Federation. If he can bring Vulcan into Starfleet we can do so much more. Things we never imagined before."

"Do you think Spock is fragile?"

"No. I don't know. Yes and no."

"Imagine I have Spock here instead of you, and I ask him what he gets out of his relationship with you. What would he say?"

Kirk pictured that, had to imagine Spock opening up to a stranger, which was a stretch. "Acceptance. Belief in him." Kirk imagined Spock as he'd last seen him, insisting on staying the night. "Companionship."

"Those sound relatively easy to deliver."

Kirk looked up at him, pleading. "If anyone could mess up his future it would be me."

Loomis considered him. "You are departing when, exactly?"

"Sometime between three and five days."

"This will be easy enough to follow then. This is what I want you to do. I want you to go back to Spock and simply appreciate him. That's all. Until your transport. Got it?"

"That's all? No advice about classes or his instructors or assignments?"

"What did you just list for me as important to him?"

Kirk rubbed his eye. "I didn't list advice. Did I?"

"I didn't hear it. So. You, James Kirk, are going to the Lohanna Sector?"

"I'm getting a pair of light strike teams to command."

"Lots of fierce fighting still going on there. But I don't sense any uncertainty about that. No fear."

Kirk shook his head.

"I want to be sure I have this straight. Going back for a few days to adore your boyfriend who adores you in return scares you but an active war zone does not?"

"When you put it that way . . ."

"Spock needs from you what you are currently withholding by worrying you cannot be everything for him and that you might make a mistake."

Kirk closed his eyes.

"Got it?" Loomis said.

Kirk held in a breath. "That hurts."

"Doesn't have to. Be what he needs. Nothing else. For the next few days, religiously. Trust me, you will arrive at your mission in far better emotional shape if you do this."

Kirk knitted his fingers together. "I feel kind of stupid now."

"That's progress."

Kirk pulled himself to sit up. His knees were too close to his face. He held onto the backs of his legs. "I got caught up in feeling guilty, I guess. It just kept getting worse."

"One last thing. Consider, just consider, that asking Spock for a meld might be the ultimate expression of appreciating him. It would, for certain, be an expression of trust in his ability to make his own decisions."

Kirk let go of his legs, held himself curled forward, rubbed his face as he tried to imagine that. "I might not do that."

"Two months from now when you are out on some mission in a cold alien night and it's quiet and you are waiting for an attack that might not come tonight or ever, what are you going to wish you'd done with regard to Spock and this need for a meld?"

Kirk froze with his hands over his face. Dropped them.

"I really hate talking to you."


	17. Need, Part 6

Chapter 17 - Need, Part 6

Kirk returned to his room from his session with Loomis. He ordered food for two, intending to feed his leaner than ever companion a full dinner no matter the time he arrived. The food came by automated cart. Kirk brought the heated delivery box up to his room and set it beside the door. Ginger and garlic and hot pepper scents leaked from the sealed lid, filled the room.

Kirk sat on the bed reviewing the most recent dispatches from Lohanna. Spock arrived, stepped in with head bowed, looking as humble as Kirk felt.

Kirk set his padd aside. "How was your day?"

"Acceptable."

Kirk clasped his hands together in his lap, looked up at Spock. "It's good to see you."

Spock nodded distractedly.

"Need anything?" Kirk waited a beat. "Besides dinner that is." He stood, touched Spock on the arms and bent to open the food box.

Kirk served out plates for two. Spock took a seat, didn't complain that Kirk had served him far more than he usually ate. Kirk put his hands under his chin, gave Spock a soft smile. The food smell made him dizzy, but he waited for Spock to start eating first.

Kirk bit into a sauce-soaked mushroom, made a noise of delight. He ate as slowly as he could, pretended to pay no attention to Spock's choice of eating only small amounts of each of what he'd been given.

"I'm going to miss a lot of things, but you and the food are the top two of the list," Kirk said.

Spock nodded. He put his chopsticks down and clasped his hands together. He'd had eaten more than Kirk expected, especially given how unemotional he remained while eating.

"I have transport arrangements," Kirk said. "For Saturday, very early. Oh three hundred. I've been called to an oversight board tomorrow and possibly the next day regarding Tantalus Colony. Otherwise I'd be heading out sooner. The delay works out, I got on a faster ship to a nearby outpost to the Lohanna Sector, and I get a few more evenings with you."

Kirk waited for a response, but there wasn't one. "Is there anything specific you need from me this week?"

Spock glanced down at the table. His eyes came back up Kirk's chest to his face. "This."

Affection ruled Kirk. He wiped his mouth, pushed his plate aside. Spock ate three more bites of tempeh, then stopped as well.

"How is your project on the Apollo?"

"It is completed. I am hoping to get access to the sensor data from the Apollo's test runs this week through Commander Absom. In time to complete my report."

Kirk rubbed his chin, wondered about not getting the data directly, but said nothing. "Good thing you don't need much sleep."

"It is an advantage."

"It's an unfair one to us mere humans."

Kirk stood and put the plates aside, returned and put his hands on Spock's shoulders from behind. He bent and put his face into Spock's hair, just above his right ear, held that way, breathing him in. Even over the stir fry Kirk could smell the baked sage and bitter musk of him. He held the scent in his mind, willed it to reside there.

He massaged Spock's shoulders while searching for things to say. Words were inadequate and may violate his need to be merely accepting. He kissed an ear, worked his way down to Spock's neck. "This all right?" Kirk asked.

"Yes," Spock said, level and stoic.

Kirk smiled as he worked his way along Spock's jaw, found his mouth which was always more supple than expected. Spock bent his head back, met Kirk's deep kiss with an open mouth.

Kirk broke off the kiss, looked down at Spock for a time, at his warm brown eyes, the fine hairs of his brows. Spock's hands came up Kirk's arms, took hold, even as his face remained neutral. Kirk's fingers fumbled for and found the seal at Spock's neck, peeled his uniform open to the waist, slid his hands inside.

"Move to the bed?" Kirk's voice came out low and eager. Between a new roommate, and wanting to be ready, he hadn't had a release since the last time they'd been together, which suddenly felt like months ago.

"If you wish," Spock said into his ear.

Kirk felt hungry expectation like a drink he could gulp down. He steered Spock to lie back on the pillow, stood straight just long enough to shed his own uniform, then straddled Spock's half bared body, put his hands on his chest and traced the shape of him with slow movements.

Spock stared up at the ceiling, the picture of neutral stoicism.

"Oh, my darling Vulcan," Kirk said.

Spock's eyes found his, tinged with curiosity. Kirk reached down and unsealed more of Spock's uniform, down one of the legs of it. Spock failed to react, his breathing remained steady.

Kirk resisted smiling. He felt an illicit tingle mix in his stomach with a sense of challenge.

At each increasingly intimate touch, Spock's eyes fluttered, then grew steady again. He watched Kirk without any apparent feeling on the matter. Kirk bent and kissed a knee, worked his way up.

"What's this?" he said of an triangular yellow and green bruise on the side of Spock's leg.

"It is minor."

"It looks old." Kirk raised his head and waited.

"It was an equipment failure of sorts."

Kirk kissed near it on Spock's thigh. "As long as an upperclassman didn't do it."

"I would defend myself from that level of injury, without regard to rank."

"You can't heal it unless you have someone to stay with you, right? You want me to help?"

Spock's face grew distant. "It is healed. That is why it looks old."

"I see." Kirk kissed just above the bruise where Spock had a bit of longer hair on his leg. "I'm curious what happened."

"It was unremarkable."

Kirk ran a hand over Spock's lower abdomen. "If you insist. You aren't usually clumsy."

Kirk backed up again, enjoyed the sight of Spock lying before him, angular, every muscle detail standing out. Kirk had never seen anything so beautiful. He wondered how he ever worried anything else could surpass this. A great relief flowed through him, bent again to work his way over Spock's body. The room was quiet enough his own lips and Spock's level breathing were the only sounds.

"You are doing really well," Kirk said of Spock's continued lack of outward reaction.

"Zienn has been teaching me additional advanced techniques to disjoint my body from my mind."

Kirk ran his tongue in a far more sensitive spot. Spock's fingers dug into Kirk's shoulder, withdrew.

Kirk kept working his way up. Pressed lips to his right side to feel the thrumming of his heart. Kissed collar bone, then pushed up on all fours to look down at Spock, who met his gaze with so ordinary of one, Kirk snorted in amusement.

"What shall I do with you?" Kirk said.

"I am thine."

Kirk bent, kissed Spock's forehead. "I miss you already."

Spock's hands came up to Kirk's ribs, held on. Kirk kissed him on the mouth, over and over, until the moisture made his lips sore. Every time he raised up, he encountered the same level gaze. Kirk stared back, his longing to use Spock's own reactions to cleave open this newfound control. He lowered himself, let his weight rest entirely on Spock's body and did just that.

Spock's upper body fell lax in release, but he locked his legs around Kirk's torso. "My control is poor," he said, sounding disappointed.

Kirk studied Spock's neutral face, head canted to the side showing off his mussed hair, vanquished but glorious in it.

"You are so beautiful. I don't know what it is about you, but I adore every millimeter of you."

Spock opened his eyes and turned his head just enough to look at Kirk from under his dark lashes. "James. We are going to have to learn to communicate using only speech."

Kirk laughed. "Yes, we are." He stroked Spock's thighs. "We'll both grow some. I realized today that we both need to more than I wanted to admit."

Spock closed his eyes.

"Anything I can do for you?" Kirk asked.

Spock held his eyes closed, voice sleepy. "Touch me additionally. That way the scent of you will remain on me for a time. Weeks perhaps."

It was a new experience having Spock's unwashed skin against him as they lay together on the single pillow, Spock under two blankets, Kirk uncovered. They were both languishing after a second lazy round.

"You will be careful," Spock said.

Kirk stared at Spock's profile which was pointed at the ceiling. He wanted to point out that they weren't saying goodbye quite yet but didn't.

"I'll be careful. And I'll come back most of the way to full commander." He touched Spock's cheek. "I have to be there for you when you finish at the Academy." He breathed in the odor of the two of them there, relished it. "I'm curious. How many Vulcan-human hybrids are there?"

"I do not know an exact count. A hundred or so, perhaps."

Kirk adjusted his head on the pillow, waved the lights down to dark. "That's not very many."

"Most are younger than I. Mortality can be an issue in the first years of life, even for those that resort to aggressive gene therapy."

Kirk kissed Spock's shoulder, put a firm arm around his chest. "I didn't realize. Makes me even more honored to have you."

Spock turned his head toward him. Kirk knew he was looking him over in the darkness. He met his gaze as if he could see just as well, and held it.

* * *

Kirk returned from a run that had morphed in the hard wind into a vigorous climb. He felt released now, at least, from his frustrations. The oversight board meeting had been harder than expected, the members reluctant to believe things on Tantalus had been that bad. The only hard evidence was video of Adams using the neutralizer on Kirk and Eli using it on Noel, which the board had felt didn't count since it was unauthorized use of the device. Kirk had felt it necessary to argue and describe his experience too many different ways, making it seem as bad as possible, when he much preferred to simply move on.

A scalding hot shower soaked the bone chill left from the wind. Kirk wandered his room still steaming from the heat, bundled in a clean set of workout clothes. He settled in. He had hours before he'd see Spock. Too many hours and little to occupy them. He didn't care about the earth news. It was already seeming pointless to his existence.

The personal feed indicator on his monitor chimed. A message from Overlander came up with a copy of a note she'd added to Spock's file. Not a citation, Overlander explained, because she didn't want to open an issue for Hully, whom she assumed had learned her lesson about equipment discipline without the need for further sanction.

Kirk read the note, read it a second time more slowly. Spock had acted the way he always did when faced with danger: with discernment and mental and physical competence. He had used his inhuman strength and wits to rescue his mentor from decompression, had done so with a circus move and no concern for his own race's distaste for touch. Overlander also praised Spock's handling of Hully's strongly negative reaction to being reminded of the Ranger's hull breech, described his words as "appropriately understanding and calming."

Spock had not mentioned the atmospheric breech on the Apollo to Kirk, even when prompted repeatedly about his injury. That could be Spock's innate desire to downplay everything or the result of receiving too much criticism over time. Kirk wasn't sure which to hope it was. He put a copy of the message in his private file. He would need it to remind himself that Spock was going to get increasingly harder to earn.

Uncertainty rose up again in Kirk. In the quiet of his dorm it resembled a cavernous, lonely ache. This wasn't just professional uncertainty as he'd claimed to Loomis. It was personal too. He closed his eyes, remembered the night before, how open Spock had been to his attentions, how willing to be an extension of him while giving and taking pleasure. Kirk tried to force it to be enough.

He checked Spock's schedule, took up his jacket and went out again.

Kirk stepped into Starfleet Academy carrying a takeaway box. Spock's last class of the day was just letting out, although he had station practice and labs to attend to until twenty two hundred.

The Academy halls bustled with activity. Heads turned to follow Kirk in his deployment uniform. A few snapped to attention calling out his rank. He replied casually, kept going. At the spot where the connectors came together in a wide area between the first and second year dorms, Kirk stopped and looked around. An Andorian sitting in one of the circular seating areas stretched up her neck to stare at him in surprise, stood up.

Kirk approached. "Cadet P'Losiwst, by chance?"

Her eyes lit up beneath metallic blue eyeshadow. "I am, sir."

"Do you know where Spock is?"

"He should be here shortly. If you'd like to wait." She stepped back with a courtly gesture to indicate the empty sliver of seat beside hers. The other cadets with her had also stood and now shifted awkwardly, waiting for a cue as to what to do next.

"At ease," Kirk said. "I don't want to interrupt."

The others gradually sat down, heads turned upward to fixate on him.

P'Losiwst said, "Are you excited to be shipping out, sir?"

Kirk turned from looking down the connector in the direction of the central hub. "You know, I am. I have to see new places at least now and then. And I like to see how others do things well and not so well, and a lot of the personnel stationed there have been through more than one tour in that location."

"The press said the Federation are making a big push there in preparation for abandoning much of it." She was clearly comfortable with roundabout formal social speech. And Kirk wondered if this made Spock more at ease with her.

"I honestly gave up on the non-Starfleet feeds for the duration."

"I understand, sir."

Kirk checked the corridor again. "You'll be here to keep an eye on Spock?"

She smiled. "He doesn't need looking after, sir. We're the ones in his group dragging him down."

One of the other cadets made an absurdly sad face, nodded.

"Don't ever think that," Kirk said. "Teamwork always gets us farther."

Spock approached from the far hub. His head lifted as he recognized Kirk, who watched him sidle along in the flow of gray and gray-blue bodies until he came before him, the very picture of Academy confidence. Kirk fought to keep an embarrassingly broad smile in check.

"James?"

"I brought you dinner." Kirk tilted his head to the side and Spock followed to the solid wall on the other side of the corridor. "I won't stay, but take this."

Spock accepted the package, held it in front of him by the sides as if it were a formal gift rather than a steaming box of falafel and spinach phyllo triangles.

Kirk dropped his voice. "You didn't tell me what happened on the Apollo." He held up his hand. "I'm not saying you had to. I'm just curious why you didn't for my own information."

Spock looked down. "Commander Overlander mentioned she sent you a copy of the note she attached to my file."

Kirk put his hands on Spock's arms. "It's okay. Whatever the reason. Understand please that it makes me uneasy for when I'm talking to you from a distance, how little you might be sharing."

Spock stared at the floor. Kirk let go of him.

A group of second years and seniors went by, chanting as they walked in time with a stuttering, sloppy step ever fourth step, a mockery of parading. They stuttered more and fell to normal walking upon seeing Kirk there. A few glanced back at him, checking if he cared to say anything.

Kirk waited until they were gone. "I'll let you get to your station practice."

P'Losiwst stood three meters away, hands behind her back. At this pause, she looked up. "If I may, sir. The group have decided that Spock, since he has already done far more than his share, should get a session off." She looked between them. "It will be good for us to try and do a full round of simulations without his coaching, honestly. And it's a waste of time for Spock to practice something he could do in his sleep."

"Spock?" Kirk said.

Spock turned to Kirk. "Do you think I should?"

"It's your decision."

"GO," P'Losiwst said. "You have what, two, three days?"

Spock stared. Kirk gave her a wink, which made her curl her antenna back.

"You are encouraging me to play hooky, I believe the human term is."

They were in Spock's room and Kirk was pulling out a place to sit. "Logical hooky, Spock. If I were setting up drills, I'd be mixing up the groups more already. I wouldn't have you in the same one all the time, at the very least."

Spock crossed his arms. "I do try to limit my corrections per session."

Kirk slipped off his boots, put one foot up on the bed. "It will get better. Classes will get difficult even for you. If you choose the right ones. Which I'm sure you will."

"You assume I am not struggling in some already." Spock sat across from him, lanky arms still latched together.

"Are you struggling still in Leadership?" Kirk almost didn't ask this.

"Much less so. There is a great deal of basic logic in that material once one accepts the sociology, psychology, and behavioral economics at issue. But the midterm examinations and simulations will verify my estimation one way or the other."

"I do regret that I won't be here to help you more."

"I will manage, James. I am certainly at no risk of falling below the minimum performance threshold."

Kirk smiled with the full force of his feelings.

The door chimed. Spock stood and opened it. An upperclassman stood there.

"You have an unregistered visitor in your quarters, Plebe. I checked the records. And I don't think this is the first time, either, based on a lot of rumors."

Spock turned to Kirk, who sat back, crossed his arms, stretched his feet out and crossed those. Spock raised a brow at him.

The cadet stepped in despite Spock not stepping out of the way. "Oh, Commander," he said, taking in Kirk's uniform.

"It's true I'm unregistered," Kirk said with bored casualness. "You have two choices, Cadet. Fetch Lt. Grange, or file the paperwork yourself. But it's annoying paperwork, by design, I believe. You have to really want to get even with someone to waste the effort on it."

The cadet turned to Spock, glared at him.

Kirk said, "You haven't introduced yourself to your superior, Cadet. For someone who likes rules . . ."

"Senior Cadet Humfress, sir." He nodded crisply.

"Noted." Kirk slowly rested his chin on his knuckles. "You make a decision yet on your course of action, Cadet?"

Humfress's face creeped closer to the color of his red hair. His mouth twisted unpleasantly. "I'll fetch Lt. Grange, sir. He's probably just coming on duty for the evening."

"You do that. I'll be here."

The door swished closed.

"I expected that the second time you came for the night," Spock said.

Kirk smiled.

"You are amused by this?" Spock asked.

"Spock, you aren't in even a fraction of the trouble with upperclassmen that I was. By this time in my first year I'd already fallen flat on my ass or face at least three times from various pranks. For some reason my tormenter liked setting me up for falls. One time he sprayed component hydrophobic coating at the threshold of my door." Kirk pointed with his thumb. "And then a mist of water. And half the Academy, it seemed at the time, was waiting to watch me skid across the corridor on my tailbone. Which I had already broken the week before, so I gave a very poor showing of decorum on top of falling."

Kirk sat back again, hands behind his head. "Of course, I had arranged for his girlfriend to stand him up on a date when he hadn't seen her in a month." He spoke defensively. "But I didn't start it."

Spock stared down at him, brow held high in dismay. "You are terrible influence."

"Oh, I know that. But I also know you've been getting kid glove treatment because of your mystique. You're not just strange to many of your fellow cadets; you are dangerously strange."

"I see."

"It's okay, though. Everyone's learning something." Kirk dropped his arms. "You're going to do okay. And most of them will too."

"Is this part of earning my place?"

"Yes."

Spock turned to the door and four seconds later it chimed. Spock called for it to open, remained standing beside Kirk's crossed knees.

Grange stepped in, let the door close on Cadet Humfress and several others in the doorway.

"You COULD register as a visitor," Grange said to Kirk.

Kirk held up his hands. "But this feels like home."

Grange rolled his eyes. "I'll handle it this time, renew your registration from your talk." He turned to Spock. "Since you are now in someone's sensor range, take it off campus from now on, Cadet."

"Yes, sir."

"And you are already doing extra duty with me so I'll remind you that you have extra duty with me. I'll try to think of something unpleasant for one round so I can file everything neatly." He looked between them. "You ship out when, Commander?"

"Very early Saturday."

"I'll also renew what I said last time to you."

Kirk nodded formally. "Thank you, Lieutenant."

At the door, Grange shook his head. "You were the very last cadet of this batch I expected to be trouble."

They were alone again.

Kirk reached for the food box. "Why don't we eat? Then you can go to your next lab on time."

Spock sat across from him, motions stiff. He accepted a fork-speared falafel. "I was correct about the trouble your visits would cause."

"You really hate breaking the rules."

"Yes."

Kirk took the single fork back, took a bite of salad drenched in dressing. "Great bird. The food. Even earth salad is good." He handed the box and the fork to Spock, wiped his mouth. Spock ate another falafel in neat nibbles off the fork. He held out the box and the empty fork.

"I've been lying to you," Kirk said. "This is not going to be easy."

Spock dropped his eyes. Nodded.

"But it will work out. Okay?"

Spock kept his gaze down. Nodded again.


	18. Departure

Chapter 18 - Departure

Amanda brushed Kirk's arm with her hand, the closest he expected she would get to a hug. She led him in with a welcoming gesture. "Come in, James. Sarek will join us shortly when he is free."

"I'm going to miss this kind of graciousness," Kirk said with his most charming smile.

The early afternoon light glared in the windows of the tea room. Amanda considered him with bright eyes, hands folded delicately before her. "It's too bad Spock couldn't join us."

Kirk gave her a weak nod.

"Or did you chose this time intentionally?" she asked.

"I didn't resist this time when it was suggested." Kirk felt something here was unfinished. And suspected he would not figure out what it was with Spock present.

"While I'm gone, you'll prod Spock to keep you informed of how he's doing?" Kirk asked.

"If you mean his emotional state, it is not the Vulcan way."

Kirk looked away. He'd expected an 'of course.' "Spock might need it."

"Nevertheless."

"Spock's going to be gone for a time, too, after this term."

She nodded, gaze inward. Every expression an approximation of a Vulcan one.

"At least I won't be the only one missing him," Kirk said.

After a long silence, she said, "You are going to a difficult place, James. Intentionally."

"I have to prove something. If that's what you are leading up to."

"To yourself?"

"Mostly." He smiled weakly. "I also hope to convince Starfleet to give me a full two bars."

The ajar door swung open. Sarek considered Kirk before stepping in. Kirk's face warmed under the scrutiny.

"You are departing earth very soon, I am told."

"Yes, Ambassador. I wanted to personally say goodbye."

"Will you require anything of us here while you are there on this mission?"

"I appreciate your offering. But not that I can think of right now."

Sarek relaxed his clasped hands. He and Amanda now stood in the same pose. "The offer will remain open."

Kirk's lips wanted to vibrate. He pinched them between his teeth. "Thank you."

Kirk fought a sense of exposure, vulnerability. Unsuccessfully. Sarek knew too much of what was inside him, and that was battling against his need to take on a command posture.

Ever the diplomat, Sarek filled in the silence. "You have researched this place you are going."

"Extensively. You accuse me of relying on luck, but I prefer to think of it as estimating what unexpected plan has the best chance based on knowing as much as possible before getting into trouble."

Kirk frowned inwardly. He was trying too hard.

Sarek nodded. "As illogical as your decisions appear from the outside, I do hope you have success with them and return safely."

"Thanks. I do as well."

Kirk looked between them, unwilling to depart. He hung there, longing to express something he had not yet identified. Both of them appeared unreachable.

Sarek tilted his head to the side, looked to Amanda. "Perhaps we should call for tea."

Kirk flushed with self annoyance and took the offered seat. He looked at his place setting to settle his thoughts. They spoke of something minor and unrelated while they waited for the servants to return.

They were willing to make him a son in law. Kirk need not feel unduly catered to. They wanted to help, but propriety help them at a distance, led to these broad gestures and silences.

The tea warmed Kirk's cup and he cradled it despite the warm room. The heat spread through his bones. His heart slowed.

"Are you concerned about the risks of your assignment?" Amanda asked.

"A little. The normal amount. More if I dwell on it. But I need a challenge before boredom gets me. To be honest. And if I want to move up, I need to learn to command larger groups."

The cake tray arrived. Kirk looked it over. He was the only one of the three to do so.

Kirk said to Sarek, "The reports indicate things are a little messy there. As maybe you're aware."

"I reviewed the intel file for the sector."

Kirk selected an apricot tart and put it on his plate. He wanted to say something about the act of leaving, not something about where he was going. He wanted these uncertain emotions to have something to do with Spock, but they did not.

Sarek turned to Amanda and they shared a silent look. Sarek steepled his rough first and middle fingers before himself.

"I sense, James, that you are holding back on expressing something. Do you wish for one of us to depart to make it easier?"

Kirk's face heated again. He was far too vulnerable. Perhaps that was the issue.

"I don't know what to say." Kirk dropped the small square of sponge cake he'd been pinching. "If I knew I'd just say it. I have one last chance here for a long time. But I don't know what needs saying." He looked between them. "I appreciate your presence in my life." He stopped, hemmed in by their need for restraint. "Maybe that's what I need to say."

He wiped his fingers, watched the steam sinuously emerging from his teacup. "I'm maybe trying to talk to a ghost. I'm not used to worrying that anyone will be worried about me."

Kirk looked up finally into their calm, attentive expressions.

"I don't know how to do this." Kirk felt better saying this.

"We will be concerned about you," Amanda said.

"If I may," Sarek said. "You seem to lack a departing ritual to mark this transition."

Kirk looked up sharply. "Yes. I do. Maybe there is one and I just don't know it."

Silence again. Sarek said, "If we have done something that has led to this emotional disturbance in you, I regret it. You undoubtedly need to be clear of mind to remain safe."

Kirk considered him, considered how his worst memories now contained a sustaining presence. A father, Loomis would probably say, although Kirk would dispute that. There was no parallel. Kirk felt his gut tightening. He was narrowing down the source of his issue.

"I don't presume to be your son-in-law, even though you offered." Kirk held up a hand when Amanda started to speak. "Please. I don't want anyone worrying about me. It's much easier. On the other hand, I feel like I'm lacking a blessing for what I'm doing. And there is no one to give it."

Sarek put his index fingers to his lips in a familiar gesture. "I cannot sanction violence."

"I actually didn't mean the mission itself." Kirk looked out the window, across to the windows on the other side of the light well. "I don't know what I mean. I am trying to talk to a ghost." He laid his napkin beside his plate. "I appreciate your patience with me."

"That is easy to offer," Amanda said.

Kirk delayed standing, wondered what his father would think of what he was doing. Any of it. He was so far away from the boy he was when he last knew him.

"I feel like I've regressed in a way." Kirk risked gauging their reaction to this.

"You are relying on us," Amanda said. "And you prefer not to. This is very Vulcan."

Kirk's lips relaxed. "I don't know how to live otherwise. But it's not the way things are, and I have to be honest and admit that." Kirk felt again like he'd chipped away at what was straining inside him.

Sarek nodded solemnly.

Kirk stood up, and Sarek followed suit.

"Don't worry too much about me. All right?" Kirk said with a bit of levity.

"Only the amount logically called for."

* * *

Spock sat in Kirk's dorm room the night before Kirk's early morning departure. He bent over his devices, absorbed in the analysis and modeling of the test run data from the Apollo's impulse engines. Articles on baselining sensors were open on one padd before him and on the desk monitor, and the data and models were open on a second and third padd. He was having trouble creating a whole methodolgy out of the sparse knowledge he'd acquired over the course of the week. The relevant papers assumed he was already knowledgeable about the underlying math and while he could learn it, eventually, there was insufficient time. For once, Spock was glad he didn't have more data.

Kirk lay on his front, bare to the waist, arms under his pillow. His breathing indicated he was not sleeping although he had been in the same position for over two hours.

"How's it going?" Kirk asked, voice muffled. He lifted his head when Spock didn't answer.

Spock sighed. "I do not know."

"It's due before class today?"

"Yes."

Kirk stuffed the pillow better under his chin. "Do you know who you are writing for?"

Spock raised his head. "The instructor, I assume."

"What purpose does your report serve to her?"

"I do not know." Spock sat back, looked over his things. "That seems an oversight on my part."

"Come and show me."

By the indirect light of three padds and the monitor Spock settled in on the bunk beside Kirk. He held up his smaller assigned padd and scrolled through the draft report.

"Wait. Scroll back. You made a simulation?"

"I was having difficulty expressing in math terminology how the models of the engine's frame during warm field idle interacted with the ship's superstructure. Math is not my strongest field and I did not advance far enough to have learned how to discuss it at this level. And I have not even started the models of the straight-line field release run."

Kirk watched the colors and textures ripple over the 3D frame on the screen and bleed into the ghostly structure of the ship encasing it, sometimes where the components barely interacted physically.

"Spock, I think you should stick with providing simulations with annotations."

Spock took the padd back. "I must justify my choices with the model. There were hundreds of small decisions."

"Put them in a list, put bullets on the front of each one. If you have time, put them in some kind of order. The simulations are far better."

Spock stared at the screen. "I will trust you on that."

Spock worked at the padd while Kirk watched. It was almost oh one hundred.

Kirk's heart sped up, his gut twisted. "Can I pull you away from your work for an hour?"

Spock put the padd aside, rolled toward Kirk on the bed. "Yes."

Kirk snaked his arms around Spock, waited. Spock's lean body gradually relaxed against him, but Kirk's sense of Spock and the world remained the same, even after many minutes of just their breathing between them.

Kirk spoke into Spock's uniform. "I thought I'd feel that sense of calm I often do when we're this close."

Spock's hand came up and rested in the middle of Kirk's back. "Producing that state is a high priest level ability. Zienn wishes me to refrain from it until I am trained properly in its use."

"Oh." Kirk held fixed, worked hard not to feel cheated.

Spock's hold tightened. "James?"

In less than two hours, Kirk had to be at the transport area outside HQ. He closed his eyes, let his thoughts drift through Loomis's words, his own promises to himself.

"I feel terrible asking this of you." Kirk stroked Spock's back in an attempt to mitigate his words. "Please say no if that's what you need to say." He bit his lips, vacillated. "But I could really use a meld."

Spock rocked up on his elbow to look down at Kirk. "Why do you feel terrible asking this?"

"Because I shouldn't need it. Because I can't stand to hurt you, especially in that way."

"And you could only bring yourself to request this of me now?"

"I wasn't going to ask at all. But the machine on Tantalus. It made me feel so empty." Kirk swallowed hard, ran his hand down Spock's upper arm. "I'm hoping you can touch that. Ease it. Before I go."

Spock's dark eyes studied him. The padds had gone dark, but there was light from the monitor. "Would you withhold anything from me that I required, even if it made you uncomfortable to provide it?"

"No."

"Do I not get the same right to attend to you?"

Kirk lifted his head at the hardening of Spock's voice. "Yes. You do get that right. But that doesn't mean I have to be pleased to make you to sacrifice for me. Or willing to do so if I have an option."

Spock considered this, looked away as if to collect his emotions. After half a minute, he looked back.

"I will of course help you." Spock sat up, put one foot on the floor, laced his fingers together. "I need approximately four minutes to prepare."

Spock's bowed profile was outlined by the monitor's low light. Kirk's abdomen fluttered in anticipation and dread. Spock's hands were going to be on him, going to be opening him up as intimately as they ever were together.

Quiet minutes past. Spock reached out. Kirk took his hand as it approached his face, kissed the backs of his knuckles, held them against his lips.

Kirk closed his eyes. "I'm not going to willingly let you withdraw once you are in me." He gripped Spock's hand tighter, aware of his own breathing.

Spock bent and kissed the center of Kirk's chest, kissed lower, on his sternum. Kirk let go of the straining in himself, both positive and negative. Waited.

Spock rose up. His hand stroked under Kirk's ear, moved to his temple, pressed hard. Kirk closed his eyes, opened his mind. The taint of his guilt and the events on Tantalus rushed forward when he tried to hold them back. He had intended to just enjoy the feeling of joining and wanted nothing to interfere.

Spock paged awkwardly through the memories, hampered by Kirk's emotions and by his own lack of skill. Kirk sensed Spock's difficulty, became as lax as he could, as open and unemotional as possible. The events became bare, distant.

"I do not understand love," came Spock's slow voice above Kirk. "It is illogical for you to experience guilt on account of that."

"I don't much now," Kirk sleepily said. "At the time I felt terribly."

Spock's free hand drifted over Kirk's chest. Kirk sensed Spock following his reactions through the meld. They were entirely one for a moment, bound together by the thread of a comfortable, casual touch. And then connected in another way by Spock's spasm of ill ease at the psychic closeness. Kirk felt his need to move on, to finish and be alone again.

"Forgive," Spock said. "Zienn handles our melds. With too much ease to learn from him."

Kirk blindly reached for Spock's thigh, patted it. "The machine." Kirk spoke from deep within the meld. He wanted to speak more, to express the aching emptiness so it could be called forth and laid bare and be touched and the emptiness of it neutralized.

Kirk found his way through the memories, to the hopeless fight with the ever increasing volume of the machine. Spock accepted the rush of the struggle's memories and the pain. He was unwavering through the onslaught, and Kirk felt a flow of respect meet the meld, felt the reflection of it balm some of Spock's strain at maintaining the meld. Kirk felt an awkward embracing, cradling. An attempt at reassurance that he knew was half bravado from Spock, but he was so grateful for it, his own affection washed through the meld, blotting out everything else.

Spock wavered, tiring from his emotions. And he wasn't skilled enough. Kirk may have to take his pain with him, a notion which hobbled Spock all the more due to disappointment with himself. There was another awkward attempt at a mind embrace, but tainted by helplessness.

Kirk pushed his affection outward, let go of his own needs. The emptiness had given way, had lost it's hard edges. He tried to embrace in return within the space Spock outlined in their minds.

Their minds inverted around each other. Kirk caught his breath at the disjoint this caused in his perceptions. He felt Spock bring order to their thoughts with rigid methodical steps that drained him horribly. Then Kirk's mind was his own again, with Spock's presence on the periphery the same way his body hovered above him on the bed.

"I did something wrong," Kirk said. "You okay?"

"It was my fault," Spock said. "My clumsy effort at resisting a full joining of our thoughts."

The meld opened gently. They floated near each other, receiving strong impressions which created little feedback loops. Kirk could feel his hand on Spock's left thigh, on his own left thigh, which was in two places.

Spock raised his other hand. Put both on Kirk's face, pressed tighter. The memories of the neutralizer came forward again, the memories of the pain afterward.

"Reach out to me," Spock's hypnotic voice said. Within their minds, Spock was rigid, dogged.

Kirk sorrowed for what he was putting Spock through. He pushed that sympathy and guilt outward, felt it part and diverge around Spock's presence. Spock reached inward to the heart of Kirk in that instant.

There was Spock, filling him. On the border of reality, Kirk had fingers, arms, but his core had become a burning, living Other within him, augmenting him from the inside. He wanted nothing but for that to continue. His chest rose and fell, rose and fell. He dare not move otherwise. And then Spock was on the periphery again.

"Is that better?" Spock's face was just above Kirk's.

Kirk took an inventory, lifted an arm. "Yeah."

"That was a narrow mind touch. The only kind I could tolerate as a teen. I have never initiated one, only been on the receiving end."

Spock was pulling away. Kirk grabbed for his hand, but it had already parted from his face. Kirk captured it and pressed Spock's knuckles to his chest with both hands.

"The Healer on the Hampton did this thing where she just made a window on my mind."

"I know the kind."

"I understood then why you don't like melds." He found Spock's gaze. "You okay?"

"No. I do not know how to help you."

"Spock, just your trying helped. Thank you for that." He memorized Spock's features, the sweep of his brows and ears, the way his eyelashes made his eyes look exotic. "You did help. It's not so painfully sharp now, the memory."

Kirk tilted his chin up to look at the clock upside down, reached up for Spock to pull him down on top of himself.

"Just enough time."

* * *

"Shall I accompany you to the transport center?"

Kirk pulled on his jacket. He knew what the scene would be there, lots of tears, the barely controlled grief of strangers. "I'd prefer to say goodbye here."

Spock nodded, sedate. "As you wish."

Kirk slipped his jacket encased arms around Spock, pulled tight for long seconds. Let go.

"I'll call you from the transport ship, okay? After your last class. Give Chanel hell, okay?"

Spock nodded, eyes brighter. Kirk stepped back, stepped up to him again, kissed him hard enough to hurt. He glanced back at the door, bowed his head with a painful frown, let the door slide closed between them.

The night felt as cold as Kirk feared it would. He took an aircar to the plaza around Starfleet HQ.

The transport center lit the night haze into an unearthly glow. Half the center was open to the outside and was only marginally warmer. Kirk got in line to check in. Ahead of him a pair of women were holding each other. Parents and children were waving, standing around glaze-eyed, in shock at the arrival of the day of departure.

Kirk looked away. He had spent the last ten years always moving toward something, never being drawn back. His gut didn't like this change. He checked in, with two minutes to spare, took the palm-sized tag the machine spit out that the techs used to sort out who was beaming where. He held it in his hand rather than hook it on his person.

It was going to get worse at the end of Spock's first Academy term. He wasn't going to be able to even talk to Spock while he was at the temple. Would be very limited from messaging him. And the Spock that would emerge from that full-time steeping in discipline… Kirk shivered, tightened his jacket.

"Red Papa," the transporter tech's assistant announced. Kirk's tag lightly pulsed in his hand. He stepped up onto the lit platform along with eight others. Beyond the glow, crew awaiting departure and shock-saddened civilians lined the circular wall. It was all light years away even before the scanning dissolution took hold.


	19. Examination

Chapter 19 - Examination

Spock was bodily present in his morning classes. He sat dutifully at the second to highest long narrow table with his half broken padd beside him running computations. He took notes on the lectures while simultaneously working on his report, listing assumptions he'd made on the models. He had difficulty putting words to some of the assumptions. He wanted to sound knowledgeable, but was not and attempting to be would be illogical. He put his emotions aside. Found it both easier and harder to do so because he'd already invested a great in this project, including injury. He listed everything, positive and negative, logically, coldly. With his limitations so baldly laid out it was impossible to assure that the models had any validity at all.

During the hour and a half of Astronomy, Spock completed the second simulation based on the straight-line trial run data. Fortunately, the first model applied to this new data with only minor modifications. He noted in his disorganized list that this was in small support of its possible rigorousness. Optimally, he would attempt to predict the engine frame's behavior during broader circumstances and then verify against additional empirical data.

In the half hour before Chanel's class Spock sat on the floor three meters from the door to the Starfleet Annex and organized his lists of notes. Four minutes and twelve seconds before it was due, Spock submitted his mid-term assignment in Advanced Ship Design. As he took a seat in the very back of the classroom, waiting for Captain Chanel to finish speaking with students, he submitted a copy to Commander Absom as an excuse to again express gratitude for his obtaining the data and passing it along. He was very grateful, and he was not accustomed to relying on favors this way.

At the other end of the row, Jaek and Horton were arguing in low tones over some aspect of their now separate but still overlapping projects. They had some inconsistency of belief regarding social behavior of second generation ship occupants. The issue sounded minor, but the need to be correct and believed extremely important.

"Very well," Chanel announced from the front dais. "Everyone who still has issues, sit down and let me recover from my acute disappointment in you."

Bodies shuffled into their seats, turned forward.

"In the next two weeks after I mentally bounce back from looking these over, we'll start the final projects, which will be group." She looked over the room. "Groups I may assign in some cases. If not all cases. Like the real world. Right kids?"

* * *

"I get twenty minutes of comm time about every 48 hours." Kirk's low-lit face emerged from a small dark cabin with walls the gray-blue of Spock's Academy uniform.

"Shall I purchase more time?"

"Can't. It's a fast transport, and not the luxury kind. It's stripped bare. That's all they'll allocate per passenger." He looked around himself. "I've seen escape pods larger than these quarters. Did you get your report into a state you were pleased enough with?"

"Perhaps."

Kirk smiled affectionately. "It's good to identify when you are incapable of being objective."

Spock raised a brow. "I hadn't thought of it that way. But 'perhaps.' Again."

"I'm glad you're challenged."

Spock watched Kirk's face as it moved between sedate, charming, and pleased. Emotions threatened Spock, and he resisted putting them aside. It seemed disloyal to do so without at least examining them, let alone experiencing them briefly.

Neither of them spoke for nearly a minute of their spare allotted thirty.

"You were not specific about your transport beyond the station," Spock said.

Kirk rubbed the back of his head. "I can't be."

"Understood."

"I'll be reduced to messages after this leg, for the most part. I'll get leave every few months. We can talk directly then. When you're available."

Spock looked down, paged through the emotions that seemed to be piling up. Nodded.

"You have brunch with your father tomorrow? That's going well, you said. And then mid-terms this upcoming week."

"Yes."

"Good luck with those."

Spock didn't want to complain about being wished luck. His logic had gone absent.

"If you want the luck," Kirk said, voice a caress.

"I do."

Kirk didn't smile, he frowned in a way that implied he was overwhelmed. He lifted his chin, eyes shining. "My Vulcan."

Spock sat steeped in myriad emotions, too many to find any expression on his face.

"Tell me about how your report turned out."

Spock thought this an illogical use of their time, but a few minutes in, decided it didn't matter what the topic was, just that there was interaction.

* * *

Spock tapped out the answer to question ten of his Propulsion mid-term examination. Question eleven asked him to compute the internal bending moments and oscillating inertial forces on a generic model of an engine in a Challenger Class starship. Spock's head filled with possible models he could apply, some standard, some experimental. He cleared these ideas and recalled the simplified models he'd been taught in this class, models intended to teach the basics, not intended to support actual engineering. He used one of those, repeated the computation with one of the experimental models. Found the result rather different, added the second result as a side note in the work space area of the answer.

Leadership mid-terms involved viewing simulations of interactions that paused frequently and asked which theories could be best applied right then and why, then went on to ask about likely previous failures that had led to the current situation. One simulation involved six crew and a lieutenant where the crew lacked motivation. Spock again felt he needed to simplify his approach. Nearly every theory impacted motivation, but only certain ones focused on motivation. He applied those, mentioned others, deleted the others. Listing everything would undoubtedly appear indecisive. On that thought, he pared his answer down to the two best ones and went to the next question.

The next simulation involved long simmering resentment of one ensign for another in another department. Spock could request more background on the difficulty by questioning the simulation's characters, but that was going to be time consuming. Around him the other students were answering, moving on. Spock estimated he was going to run out of time if he did not answer faster. Kirk seemed to lead through instinct and hyper-awareness of others while appearing uninvolved, along with brutal self-critique. Spock did not have much hope for copying his methods except for that latter, which he was caught in right then.

Beside him, P'Losiwst answered each prompt with sharp, confident taps of her narrow blue fingers. Her posture indicated competitive excitement tinted with aggression. He had never asked her for help in this class. Perhaps he should do so.

* * *

Lt. Grange strode the pre-dawn corridors of Starfleet Academy on Friday morning. He liked this hour, when only a few intrepid, overly eager-to-please souls were out and about. It was the part of the term when he took the middle of the day off to concentrate his attention on the more likely to be unsupervised early morning and late night hours.

Grange passed the main lobby, bright even at this hour due to the giant ray collector shape of the full height windows on the front. A senior cadet who seemed to be not so much up early as coming in late, blinked blearily at something beyond Grange's right shoulder. Grange turned, found a middle aged Vulcan standing at the threshold of the lobby tower, hands clasped at chest height in front of great robes that fell in heavy layers around him. He stared up at the naturally glowing architecture, studied it with patient interest.

The figure lowered his gaze and locked eyes with Grange in an unmistakable demonstration of a sixth sense.

Grange strode toward him with his best official air. "I'm Lieutenant Grange of Student Services, can I assist you?"

"I am Ambassador Sarek, Vulcan ambassador to the Federation. I was intending to look around. If that is allowed."

Unlike most beings, this one didn't look over the skin of Grange's face and baldly wonder why it was still imperfect. Grange nodded primly. "The main office will be opening in half an hour. Did you make arrangements for a visit?"

"I did not. I expressly do not want a show. I simply wish to observe."

Grange relaxed. "I understand. The main office only has two modes, prospective student or dignitary. I can show you around the main areas. Unless we have an emergency, I have some time."

Sarek bowed faintly. "I would appreciate the expense of your time and effort, Lieutenant."

The increasing sun through the windows was turning the inner side of the lobby tower into a giant field of light rays. Grange led the way out of the lobby and through the darkened auditoriums with their projector daises and AI support, intending to take a pass by the labs on the far side of the main building and then see what interested his party from there.

They stalled in the corridor of 3D projections of final projects. Sarek stopped at every one for at least for a minute or two. Grange dampened his impatience. This corridor was likely a more accurate representation of the Academy than the architecture and vague handwaving about what happened in each space of the building.

They both stood listening to a talk on radial measurement using probe array data. Spock had selected most of these for inclusion, and after reviewing two or three, Grange had simply let him put up whatever he wanted.

"Interesting." Sarek turned his whole body to indicate his attention had shifted back to Grange. "We may continue."

"I don't have a standard tour, by any means."

Sarek spoke slow and deliberately. "In that case, you will most definitely be optimal for this task."

They finished touring the public side of the labs and the simulators and came back around to the central area. The seating in the student hub now contained a scattering of students working in groups or studying alone. Sarek surveyed each with his intent gaze. Grange used his practiced eye to watch for trouble that might mar his tour.

"This week was mid-terms," Grange said. "Lots of examinations covering ten weeks of material, and at the same time projects were due, so it's quiet as students sleep in a little. It will be parade day this afternoon on the front plaza if you have any interest in that."

Again, Sarek turned his whole body to face Grange. "I am aware. I am also aware that your academy computes a ranking of students in each year at this time."

Grange now wondered if this impromptu tour wasn't related to Spock, an assumption he'd not bothered to make before now, given this Vulcan was an official and officials came through regularly as part of seeing all the sites related to Starfleet.

"It's being computed and audited this morning, in fact. As, maybe you are also aware." Grange pulled his padd out of his belt pouch. "I can check if it's been posted. Just the top ten from each class are made public. Not the full list."

Grange found the posting, just minutes old, on the administrative office feed. Spock wasn't on it. He held the padd out.

Grange didn't get any impression from Sarek's stony face as his eyes flicked down the list. Grange took the padd back, kept it out. His normally dormant curiosity was getting the better of him. He could pull Spock's record up right then, but held off.

"Is anything amiss?" Grange asked his visitor.

This brought up one brow. "No."

"What can I show you next? Would you like to visit administration? They are likely open now."

More students arrived, got coffees, were evaluated by the visitor without expression.

"How much interaction do you have with the students, Lieutenant?" Sarek asked.

"Depends on the student. Some do some work for me. Some get into trouble a lot." Grange paused. "Some do a bit of both because working for me is punishment."

Sarek turned only his head this time, expressed a bit more interest in Grange himself, re-evaluated his eyes, his collar and the markings on it.

"Are you familiar with the first year student Spock?"

"Yes, of course. He's in trouble with me a lot."

The visitor was jarred an iota before going neutral again. Bingo, Grange thought.

"You don't seem like the sort of human to use humor in such a circumstance," Sarek said.

"Because I'm not. I assume you are related to Spock?"

"Yes. I would have assumed you knew that."

"Just so we're clear. I don't read any student's records, Ambassador."

"That must make your job most difficult." Heat came along with this. The heat Grange was sure Spock was going to be facing later.

"On the contrary, it makes it much easier." Grange led the visitor away from the students and toward the small atrium which was open but shielded against wind and rain by force fields above. "Students come here to find out who they can be, not who they already are."

They passed a group of students walking slowly all sharing a single padd held up before them as if leading them. When they were out of sight, Grange said, "I make it a personal policy to have no assumptions about who a student was before or, in the case of most official records, who someone from their past mistakenly believed them to be. In this vein, if someone comes to me six months after a problem and seem to be someone new, I am more than willing to start again."

They stopped in the middle of the high atrium. Narrow canals flowed with water, bamboo and tassled water plants formed screens between benches.

"I manage students with this seemingly liberal openness by being an ass from day one," Grange said. "Leaves me a lot of room to show very small increments of approval that are still borderline obnoxious."

Sarek turned with a soft brushing sound of his shoes, peered at Grange. "And what sort of trouble is Spock causing?"

"The conniving kind. Of which I approve." He paused to let his visitor take that in. "Spock isn't like most other first year cadets. He is utterly unintimidated."

Except, Grange thought, that one time when dealing with his father nearly broke him down.

Grange said, "And Spock is unbelievably bright. And his presence is a blessing. He learns about our human systems by poking at them sharply to see how they react. And the systems in turn learn as well."

This brought up an angled brow.

"Spock just being here is forcing staff and old guard line officers to think harder about what we are."

"Are you the old guard, Lieutenant?"

"No. Not quite yet."

Sarek stared down the aisle that led fully outside to the abstractly shaped areas between buildings. "How do I learn Spock's ranking?"

"You'll have to strong arm administration. Or ask Spock."

Sarek nodded. He turned to look back the way they had come, indicating he was through here, if not through with Grange.

"I don't have favorite students, Ambassador," Grange said. "I have less favorite students and even less favorite students. But Spock is a favorite student."

Sarek raised his chin. "I assume you are making a point by utilizing a logical fallacy."

Grange had to keep down a smile. "Of course."

Sarek held his gaze, nodded. "My gratitude for the tour, Lieutenant."

"Want me to take you to the offices?"

"I know where they are." He bowed slightly, stiffly.

Grange watched the robed figure stride away, flinched for no good reason.


	20. Tutor

Chapter 20 - Tutor

Kirk received more files. They were attached to his orders and came in separate from his allotted communication time. The files had full details, places, names. He stood hunched by the unneeded light beside the door to his tiny cabin, reading the lists, ranks, decorations, roles: technical engineers, gunners, pilots, medics, already divvied up into two teams. Beside each was a chip shaped icon that linked to each of their records.

Kirk rubbed his forehead and sat on the bed with his hardened little padd in brown and gray leaf camouflage in his lap. He pulled up each personnel record in alphabetical order, studied every word twice over. There were video snippets attached to half of them. A segment of the crewmember or officer talking about themselves from a script of prompts, an optional addition Kirk hadn't seen before. It was more useful to him than the rest of the record. He wished it were required.

He started the first video again. A pale skinned, pale haired man with a square face stood staring at the ground, rubbing his jaw. He looked up, cringed, shifted his boots.

"Name's Hungren. Hun, usually. Like the barbarians." He spoke with a friendly smile that tried to shift to tough. "Not like what you'd call your spouse if you'd been together too long."

Kirk propped a pillow behind himself, settled in to get to know his new people.

* * *

"I have obtained a copy of your transcript. A ranking of sixteenth is an insufficient placement, Spock."

Spock took hold of the back of a chair but resisted leaning on it. The tea room was sunny today, cheery in contrast to his father's sharpened features.

"I estimate that I am balancing the high demands and extra opportunity of the advanced course against my core classes as effectively as is possible."

"According to your transcript it is not your core technical courses that are at issue. It is the softer arts in which you are well behind your top peers." Sarek sat with his hands resting face down on the table, not laced together as if willing to compose and bank his force of will. "I expect you to improve your ranking by the end of the term. I expect you to be first, as befits your innate skills and disciplined ability to apply those skills. I will accept fourth. If I must. But I will not be pleased, only not displeased."

Spock dropped his gaze. "Yes, father."

"Toward that end, I have made rather difficult arrangements with the foremost Vulcan scholar of earth literature. He is widely published in the Federation core in literary critique in the Standard language."

Spock wanted to say that seemed illogically excessive, but to state that was to insult his father and his father's ideals about his family. He said nothing.

"He lives alone in the earth desert east of here. He has been on earth for a great while, more than a hundred years, so I expect he can assist with bridging your understanding."

Spock bowed his acceptance of this.

"You will give Shutan proper deference. Do you understand?"

"Of course, father."

Sarek raised his chin. "You have not always done as such with your tutors. And Shutan is more revered as a scholar of earth and near colony literature than your poetics tradition instructor last year was of his art."

Spock bowed his head. He recalled the tutor's impatience, his displeasure of having to instruct Spock. At the time Spock had not understood the politics of poetic sponsorship by Vulcan's elite families, and had assumed it was entirely Spock's lack of worthiness that motivated his treatment. In retrospect, Spock should have classified the poor treatment as unimportant, as he had done with Chief Ping. But he had been too unskilled in his disciplines to manage it.

"I apologize for any past difficulties I caused with my tutors, father. I do not expect to be any more adept a student of literature than I was of poetics, but I will always remain deferential. I understand better that I am representing you."

"I stated as much at the time, as you will recall."

Spock nodded. "I do recall."

"I will give you his coordinates. Shutan insisted on setting a first meeting time and not knowing your schedule otherwise than this afternoon, I informed him you would meet with him in half an hour. Do you require an introduction? I can send you with Sgroud."

"I do not require one. Unless you believe Shutan expects it."

"He tends strongly toward reclusivity. So, no. Keep that in mind as well. Take your personal interaction cues from him and remain silent otherwise. Your goal for this first meeting is to retain him as a tutor." Sarek gestured at the table, which was set already with cakes. "But first, sit and eat. Your mother insisted I feed you. She worries you are not eating well now that James is absent."

Spock sat down, took the closest three cakes. "It is true that I often become enmeshed in a difficult mental task and, having put all physical concerns aside, do not notice I am in need of sustenance."

Spock swallowed his last cake and wiped his hands and stood up. "I should depart with extra time, father, just in case."

Sarek looked up. "As deferential as you can be, Spock."

"Yes, father."

* * *

Shutan lived in a long adobe house in the Nevada desert surrounded by astringent scented scrub and broadly domed rocky surfaces with gray dust blowing across them. There was no other visible habitation besides the low house with its power and communications dome atop one corner of the knee-high wall. Spock spent the extra time standing in the wonderfully warm afternoon sunlight.

Lizards scattered at Spock's approach to the house. The scent of Vulcan twig tea wafted toward him. Spock realized only then that he should have put on a fine set of robes instead of his cadet uniform.

The wall was low enough to step over, but the gate swung open as Spock approached. Along the inside of the wall were planted Vulcan fat vine, nettle branch, spike cover, none of them considered decorative on Vulcan.

Shutan's great stooped figure shuffled into view as Spock stepped under the overhang lining the south wall of the house. Spock felt his inner eyelid snapping back in the dim light, something that rarely happened in San Francisco.

"You are Spock."

Spock bowed, gave a properly long formal greeting, received a cursory one in return as one might give a young child. Shutan was well over 200 so Spock probably seemed a young child.

Shutan led the way inside along the windowed front of the house past full shelving stacked back to back, mostly printed, but two shelves were stacked with an archive of electronic readers and the one below with digital media.

"I have been away from Vulcan a long time," Shutan said. "Sit."

The low chairs were broad and soft and human. Shutan sank into one, tipped his exquisitely wrinkled face back and stared along his nose at Spock.

Spock waited for his elder to speak with easy calm, spending the long minutes taking in the view outside, the low wall, the Vulcan plantings, the low gray hills streaked with rusty red rock and seams of struggling green-black shrubs.

"So," Shutan said with a huff of air. "Great grandson of T'Ruit, grandson of T'Pau has joined the space branch of human earth military service."

Spock fell back on Kirk's advice, less so his father's, and did not explain or excuse himself. "Yes."

Shutan revealed no indication of his thoughts.

"Your father did not explain why you needed to comprehend earth and near-earth literature, only exhorted me to take you on. You need to please your human instructors at this earth academy, I now estimate."

"Father did not mention to me that my dress may be at issue. I apologize if you have been misled in a displeasing manner."

Shutan squared his frail shoulders. He wore fine but very old robes that had grown thin and draped tent-like over his bones. "I encounter only the rare surprise in person. The few I get come in words. And many fewer of them now than fifty years ago. Perhaps there is nothing left unsaid as is frequently, flippishly posited." He looked Spock's uniform over again. "Yet you wear that."

Spock shifted his body. "The fittedness has taken some adapting."

"I wasn't speaking of the shape of the garment, but the symbol of it. Or are you intentionally misunderstanding for your own reasons?"

"I selected an interpretation that applies to me. The shape of the garment is very strange."

Shutan's brows lowered and he hmfed through his nose the way older Vulcans frequently did.

"I was taken aback by your father's mode. To be begged, I would estimate is a fair term, to take you on as a mentee." He looked out at the dry yard that reflected every ounce of sunlight in every direction, very much like Vulcan except for the color of the light. "The priests do not tend to honor us scholars." He spoke distantly, as if to himself. "Not typically."

"My father has long intended that I learn the sciences."

"That is not the same thing as a scholar." He turned back to Spock. "These divisions have truly escaped you so? Like the meaning of that uniform?"

Spock considered this. He could piece together memories of his father, his older cousins, prioritizing what knowledge was valued and which was not. But he had never considered the larger picture.

"I suppose I did not care to assimilate a general rule regarding a division of knowledge," Spock said.

Shutan's sagging, geologically pitted face shifted. "I do not teach literature. For one thing, it's not a thing to teach. It is a thing to expose others to in hopes they will find their way, and I assume that your human Academy instructor has already exposed you."

Spock steepled his fingers. "I am, in turn, doubtful I can learn. I continue to encounter a gulf between my experience with the material and what I observe others gaining from it. But I have been commanded to come. And I have been commanded to succeed at this."

A speckled left brow went up. "I hope you are accustomed to failure. I assume your father is not. Tell me about the books you have experienced already, and what your thoughts were of them."

Spock's eidetic memory related this. He added in some of the class discussion that had been most interesting to him. He finished, clasped his hands and waited.

Shutan watched Spock in silence for six and a half minutes. He reached beside him on a low table for a book, flipped it open with gnarled hands, filled his hollow chest with breath. "I have lived on earth for a hundred and twenty one years. I found a world inside a world that Vulcans for the most part cannot understand. Or cannot any longer. Perhaps our pre-reform ancestors could. At one time I spent a decade analyzing Romulan literature in an attempt to determine if they possess the proper intellect for this kind of storytelling, but I am still uncertain. Their current writing is pap."

He turned the open book to Spock. "An easy one. Heart of Darkness. Read it before?"

Spock shook his head. Shutan turned the book back to himself, read aloud in a surprisingly strong voice, "'Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth!…The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires.' Do you hear how I am reading it?"

Spock nodded.

Shutan turned it to Spock again. "I want you to read that way, if you can, into your mind. Allow it to have grandeur as it deserves it. Allow it to pull back into the ethereal as it deserves it. Sense it with more than your logical faculties. There are stories present at several levels." He sat back, appeared flat.

Spock closed the book. He expected to disappoint Shutan next session, but at least he had succeeded in retaining him as a tutor, the single goal he had been given for this meeting. He nodded deeply, and withstood another four minutes and twenty seconds of close examination before being led out.

* * *

Kirk removed everything from his duffel bag, laid out the contents in neat rows on the narrow bed. He folded and stuffed the large bathroom towel into one end of the bag, zipped it up. He carried it to the exercise room, packed it with hand weights equal to thirty-five kilos, packed an exercise room towel in on top.

He squirmed the drooping duffle onto his shoulders as a backpack and jumped up and down on his toes to settle the weights in the bottom. He configured and climbed onto the treadmill set to a three degree angle.

This was a degree and ten kilos more than his run the previous day. His limbs felt deadweight achy as the speed ramped up to the setting he'd given it. He made his limbs move more decisively, made his arms swing, felt the straps drag down on his shoulders over and over with each pounding step.

Kirk ran half an hour, stopped and stretched, walked the small space between machines, shaking his arms. He gave his smarting shoulders a break from the straps long enough to lull them into thinking they were getting a reprieve for the day. Then he hefted the bag back onto his back again.

Every time Kirk he longed to slow down, to walk for a bit, to bend over and rest his neck and back, he imagined one of his new crew, someone far more experienced but lower rank, having to slow down for him. Possibly putting himself and them at risk.

That was not going to happen. Kirk run until he couldn't draw in enough breath and his ribs felt compressed by the abuse. Thirty five minutes. He coughed, cleared his lungs, drank greedily from his canteen, water running back over his cheeks, down his neck, making his already sweaty shirt stick more heavily to his skin.

He breathed, willed his need for oxygen to normalize. He was starting to settle into the cold knowledge that he was taking on a lot. The trick was to not let it scoop him up and carry him away. Just do what worked. Be open to learning he didn't like, from any source. Let those around him learn as well, make mistakes, lead, let them take up roles that might challenge him. A good leader will eventually make himself incidental except for crises.

Kirk patted his face dry of sweat. He'd managed this before, but this time he'd have to do it while under fire from nearly day one.


	21. Learning Opportunity

Chapter 21 - Learning Opportunity

Late evening, Spock sat at the desk in his dorm room repairing his padd. Components and fixtures were laid out on a panel of red microvelvet and the room's air held a hint of epoxy scent. He had purchased another very powerful, but solid core, unit to use while he worked on this one. The new one could not be modified but it was nearly unbreakable. It sat on the corner of the desk ready with an alarm in case of a connection request from Kirk.

Spock picked up another ribbon with a touchless tweezers and fitted the ribbon into adjoining boards, sealed the join, clamped it, watched the status lights glow green. He sat back and looked over his work. He had plasti-welded the cracked frame, wondered if it had been flawed from its time of manufacture to break against his femur the way it had. He would have estimated previously that his femur would have lost in such a battle.

Spock's padd trilled softly. The lower middle of his chest seemed to swell in response, illogically so. He shook his head and accepted the connection.

"Hi." Kirk was sitting back against a pillow. His relaxed face held a sly smile.

"James."

"You alone?"

"Yes."

Kirk's hand filled the screen as he adjusted the monitor arm to better aim down at his face and bare chest. His hands came back up and propped behind his head, which made his pectoral and triceps muscles stand out.

"Busy?"

"I am repairing my padd. I have additional, optional class readings I could do, but they can also wait until we are through communicating."

"You have the privacy lock on your door?"

Spock instructed the door to change status. "Yes."

Kirk drew in his lips. "You're in a nice cozy light there. Sort of orange on one side, blue on the other."

"I am?"

"Yeah."

"Am I to assume from your breathy voice that you are physically involved in this conversation?"

Kirk's lips cocked sideways. "I'd like to be. You willing to spend our allotted time being intimate?"

"As much as that is possible. If you wish."

Kirk rocked forward, propped himself up with his pillow, then shifted his hips. He reclined back, looked over Spock's face. "I want to see you. Do you mind?"

Spock stood and shed his uniform. He sat again, held his new padd in his lap. Reconsidered, and lay back on the pillow, padd propped vertically on his abdomen.

Kirk sighed. His eyes closed. "I really wish you were here."

Spock moved the padd to his thigh, estimating the camera would pick up all of his torso. Kirk made a sound of approval, shifted his body.

"You okay?" Kirk asked.

"I am fine."

Kirk's eyes closed. His head tipped back. He opened his eyes, looked Spock over with a distant expression.

Kirk sat up, pushed the monitor around on the hinged arm, sat back against an additional pillow which concentrated his softly human abdomen. Spock knew the feel of that flesh by memory, the tiny roll at his waist when he had been ashore more than two weeks, the softness of some parts, the muscles of others.

Spock suppressed his reactions. Doing so pushed the physical reality of Kirk farther away, as if he were a recording or a simulation.

Kirk opened his eyes to look at Spock with a low, hooded gaze, tipped his head back, eyes slitted.

"I don't mean to tease you."

"It is all right, James. If I can assist you from here, I am pleased to do so."

Kirk smiled. "I won't have any trouble today. Not much else on my mind. When I get a bit of leave from more stressful times I'll probably need more from you. I'll be really grateful to have you to focus on. If I get a bit kinky on you, I apologize ahead of time. Seems to help with getting a real break from things."

Spock raised a left brow. "I am curious now."

Kirk smiled but it didn't reach his eyes. "Are you?"

Spock pitched his voice low, which he estimated Kirk would enjoy. "So I observed."

"I want so much to touch you right now."

After a time, Kirk sighed loudly and sat up. "That's better." He might have been running and just stopped. "I've gotta sleep in this bed yet tonight." He laughed. He sounded wistful, wildly alive and satiated, all at once. Spock ached, wished for him there with him, felt trapped in his body.

Kirk fell back on the pillows. "You still okay?"

"Yes."

Kirk seemed to sense the ambiguity.

Spock said, "I suppressed my reaction to you."

"I'm sorry about this situation. I wish we could do something for you."

Spock felt hollow, but he nodded.

"You sure you'll be all right?"

"This is new for me, James. I will know better next time we communicate."

Kirk's eyes closed. He appeared regretful.

"James. I want you to be pleased. And I do not think there is an alternative so it would be illogical for you to resist because of how I am." Spock sat up, cradling the padd on his forearms. "I am very pleased to be here for you. I do not wish to need to deceive you to obtain the logical outcome for you."

Kirk pulled the monitor over his head so it had a view downward on him. It made Spock ache more, which required he use his old disciplines of resisting reacting. He did not wish yet to put his emotions aside.

"You are doing better at communicating than I am."

"I am gratified to be with you this way."

Kirk put his hand on his head. "God, stop it." He laughed. "My Vulcan. Okay. I'll indulge myself and keep that separate from my concern for you. Okay?"

"Thank you, James."

* * *

Spock sat in his dormitory room with Joseph Conrad's words glowing on his new padd. He was sitting back with his feet up on the bunk, missing the padded window seat in Kirk's old room. He looked away and the eye tracking auto scroll stopped moving. It was his second time through the work. He was attempting to rethink it, to see it as a couched or coded message of some kind. Or at least read it poetically, which at times it seemed to reach for in an almost Vulcan style which Spock should ostensibly be capable of parsing given his year of tutoring in that.

The book seemed to be making an argument regarding the assumption of unchecked depravity outside social controls. And his naive protagonist provided the neutral view of events for the reader. But this argument did not need to be made. It was logical and obvious. It did not require extensive rehashing chapter after chapter to prove its worth. So Spock was certain he was missing something. The situations described in the story did closely match current concerns surrounding first contact with newly discovered planets and uncontrolled colonization of marginal worlds. The kind of problems the Federation worked hard to prevent, especially through brutal enforcement of the prime directive.

Spock did appreciate the author's attempts to support this viewpoint through displaying it baldly and wondered that it wasn't assigned at the Academy. Unlike newer works in a similar vein, this one focused more directly on that single issue and the age of the work made it harder to deny this sort of corruption's timeless power and would help argue against relaxing existing rules.

Spock turned back to the padd and it began to scroll again as his eyes moved over it. This was not the kind of discussion that would impress his tutor and he did not, so far, see any others.

* * *

Commander Absom repeatedly looked up to the higher tiers at Spock during his Propulsion lecture on ion injection and emission channeling in fueled thrusters. It happened enough times that P'Losiwst turned to Spock with antenna extended in question.

Spock expected to be waylaid on the way out of the auditorium, and he was. Commander Absom called him over to the front table where his flimsies and padds and extra remotes for the AI were scattered. P'Losiwst remained by the door, glittery yellow-jeweled satchel clutched across her front, as the other students filed out.

"Cadet Spock." Absom stared down at Spock from under his bushy white eyebrows. He appeared displeased. "What are you working on right now. Project wise?"

"I assist in student services."

Absom stood with hands on hips. "How'd that happen?"

"I suppose a human would say I fell into it, Commander."

Absom stared. His eyes appeared slightly cloudy. "Are you attending the advanced research internship reception this Saturday?"

"I had not intended to."

"You intend to now."

"Yes, sir."

Absom began gathering up his things in a manner as disorganized as the things themselves. "I sent your file to a colleague working on the Antaras Project. But talk to everyone. Understand? Every high-level project accepting students will be there. I got Captain Chanel to add a note vouching for your independent work when it was questioned, so make us look good over here. All right?"

"Yes, sir."

Spock and P'Losiwst strode together to the larger auditorium for Core Cultures. "Do you have an interest in accompanying me to this event Commander Absom mentioned?"

"Absom had me at 'reception'."

"I see."

* * *

Kirk's latest message appeared to have been written in four sessions based on an analysis of styles and shifting moods. Kirk was bruised from heavy workouts; he was sleeping well; he up to date on the planetary security situation and his new crew; and he was finally feeling somewhat confident. Spock was relieved to see Kirk's attention moving onward to his duties. He didn't advise Spock on any matter in any section of the message.

Kirk was due to arrive at his assigned post in less than 24 hours. Spock immediately estimated what distance Kirk would progress in 3 days 20 hours, and ten minutes. There were four former colony worlds that distance from the base where Kirk had changed ships. Spock entered the names of the worlds into his Starfleet feed filters along with the system names.

Spock's breathing became too shallow. He put the reaction aside, then put aside the one behind it he hadn't been aware of. He stood fixed, a single feed item trickle in. There had been only a handful of notices for those locations over the last month. Lack of data was going to be the first significant change to grow accustomed to.

Spock's door chimed. P'Losiwst stood in the doorway. She wore a silver scarf and silver insignia brooch around her neck. "Ready to recept? I hear it's an open bar."

At P'Losiwst's insistence they took a ground car to the private venue on the edge of campus and found their way inside. Admission appeared to be free and open but the hall's occupants were almost entirely senior cadets with a few second years. P'Losiwst surveyed the room, grinned broadly at Spock.

Immersion experience booths were arranged around the perimeter of the hall. High tables were scattered in the center. Most of the senior class seemed to be present, standing relaxed in the poses humans favored in a bar setting. P'Losiwst left Spock's side, returned with two bright yellow glasses of liquid.

"They called this drink 'coolant fumes on Vega' and said to sip slowly."

Spock held up the glass. Threads of a green liquid were snaking through the glowing yellow, refusing to mix. He pretended to sip it.

"That Antaras?" P'Losiwst asked.

Directly opposite the entrance, occupying half a wall of space, stood a significantly larger than average booth draped in black. The logo hovering to the left of it was a pair of As vaguely resembling the Starfleet deployment insignia, mirroring each other upside-down. The lower A had a squiggle at two corners as if to indicate a ripple in water.

"Let's practice first. Come on," P'Losiwst said.

"Wise," Spock said, but she didn't hear him. She'd already headed off to the first booth on the right.

They worked their way up the row. In most booths, P'Losiwst stepped into the experience zone and back out within a minute. She listened longer only in the extreme environment botanical chemistry research booth. In the others, she waited for Spock while sipping her drink, eyes scanning the other cadets as they made their way around the room, talking about what they knew of the projects.

Spock was either ignored by booth staff after they observed his first year cadet grays, or given too much attention after they observed his race. He would have kept to himself, observing, but accepted P'Losiwst's logic as his own and asked questions about how students managed to juggle projects and studies, how their work was acknowledged on the project, whether students had any autonomy with their work selection.

"Feel ready?" P'Losiwst asked when they were halfway along the wall of booths.

"Yes."

Her antenna were unusually angled outward. Spock wondered if that was an outcome of consuming her third drink as rapidly as she had the first two. Spock reluctantly offered her his untouched first drink before they stepped up to the Antaras booth.

Unlike the others there were no informational panels on the outside, only romanticized images of prototype ships being simulated flying in open space. Inside, Spock heard Cadet Jaek's voice. He was gesticulating at a human female dressed all in black wearing Antaras logos on her shoulders.

"My cousin does a lot of contract part work for impulse engines. I worked in that division two summers when I was fourteen and fifteen. Learned everything there was learn about engine specialty metals and crystal growth. And we're bidding on the full scale of the standardized units about to be deployed fleet-wide. I expect we'll get those. My aunt and uncle run the shop. I said that right?" Jaek looked up as did everyone else when the projections on the black backdrop shifted to show a set of curvy field grids overlaid on an unusual engine design. Equations and force lines bloomed outward. The star field behind the engine surged to the left, inflicting a dizzying impression of motion, of riding along with the engine model through a 3D starscape.

Jaek kept talking. The booth staff member stared past him, glaze eyed. Senior cadets filled in, eyes reflecting the simulated engine.

P'Losiwst nudged Spock. "Go on."

"I will wait. If you do not wish to, please continue on to the other booths."

She sipped her drink. "We have to stick together. This is hostile territory."

"Indeed."

Cadets stepped out, more wandered in and picked up the large silvery data cards with the logo on it. Cadet Horton came in with a drink in each hand. He nudged Jaek with one of them, spilling on his uniform, which Jaek didn't seem to notice. He spotted Spock and P'Losiwst at the edge of the simulation projection area, and his face wrinkled.

"This is my best friend, Horty. Can't do anything without him." Jaek gestured at the black clad Antaras representative, said to Horton. "Antaras is doing the next gen glider field design. No longer impulse. My uncle thinks it's bunk that they can get it working at scale." He sipped his drink.

Horton tapped Jaek's arm. "Look who's here."

Jaek turned around, seeming annoyed to have his thoughts interrupted. He looked Spock over and his brows lowered. He turned back to the representative. "So, what's available end of term here in the Antaras SF office?"

The rep ignored him. "Are you Cadet Spock?"

Beside Spock, P'Losiwst said very quietly, "Sic 'em."

Spock gave a small bow and stepped forward two paces, not enough to intervene in the existing social tableau.

"I was promised you'd come by." The rep stepped through the crowd to Spock. She held out a small round chit. "There's a real recruiting meeting and the information is on there." She looked plainly at Spock. "Okay? Any questions for me?"

Spock bowed again. "No, sir. Thank you."

"Good man. See you then."

Spock resisted looking at his fellow cadets on the way out, resisted looking at the coin on the way out as well, palming it instead. P'Losiwst held her drink to her lips as she went.

They were back out in the table area. P'Losiwst set the half-full glass down. "Take your drink back. That was priceless." She wore a crooked smile as she watched him sniff the substance in the glass. "Nice touch with the ultra humble. That really put a nice layer of ice on it."

Spock allowed a small amount of liquid between his lips as a test. It tickled his tongue and the heat of his mouth ignited vapors which entered his sinuses and smoldered there. "I was not attempting to accentuate the interaction in any way."

Her antenna tilted inward. "Even better."


	22. Interesting Cover

Chapter 22 - Interesting Cover

Base Yankee Yellow was a stripped down hulk orbiting Polanus IX. There was barely any insulation on the inside of the hull. Instead the power plant pumped out heat full blast creating rivers of hot and cold air in the open areas.

Kirk's field boot's caused the decking to shift and clang despite their softer soles. At the transfer base, he'd been issued field wear, jacket, pants with padding on the knees and shins. Gone was the command gold. Everything was variations on mixed rocky gray xeno-biologic desert sparse high-anthocyanin flora camouflage, or GAD CAMO, for short.

The corridor opened up and led onto a bridge overlooking the repair bays. Armored scuttles were packed close together in various stages of disassembly, parts were stacked onto the roofs on top of flat panels. Kirk studied the vehicle damage areas, looking for commonalities and patterns. Crew clanged by behind him on the suspended metal grates.

"Commander Kirk?"

Kirk turned around to find a round faced man with shoulder length shiny hair. One of his techs. "Crewmember Bark, correct?"

A blank stare of surprise. "Yes, sir." Bark stepped closer, lifted his chin. Kirk sensed he was comparing their heights, which were almost the same.

Kirk tossed his head. "Any of those scuttles ours?"

Bark smiled. "One of them is. Golf Hotel Niner in the corner. We're not scheduled to get her back until after this mission."

The next mission was four days patrol over a quiet planet. Kirk didn't chaff at what was clearly a starter mission. Anything could go wrong, anywhere. Instead of being annoyed, he felt overly grateful.

"All mission crew accounted for?"

Bark put his hands behind is back, raised his chin again and stretched taller. "Last I heard. I don't usually keep up with everyone's status."

Kirk stepped along the gangway, leaned over the railing one more time to look around at damage points.

"You don't? So you don't know if the height listed for me in my file is wrong, crewmember?"

Bark flushed. Kirk raised a brow, stepped away.

Bark caught up to Kirk and matched stride. "It's a very tall pair of teams, sir." Then he fell silent, shoulders forward.

He followed as Kirk took a self-tour of the station. They stopped in an area that smelled homey, of food and sweat. The door plates had metal cast alphanumeric codes and scrawled labels in white pen beneath those. "Crew's Nest."

"Officer's quarters are farther down," Bark said after a long pause.

"Team's not together on base?"

"No, sir."

"Interesting." Kirk looked each way, watched station staff moseying, an intentional lack of hurrying. "I need to find Lt. Uirik, have her get everyone together."

"Good idea, sir."

Kirk continued down the corridor to the somewhat nicer officer's area. But nicer was relative. On any other station it wouldn't have served as storage.

The room shifted as Kirk entered. Half looked up but no one wanted to obviously react.

Uirik hadn't added a video introduction to her file, but Kirk had her photo. He didn't see her red hair here. He stepped up to a Lieutenant who was watching two others play a virtual game of 3D chess with a battered projector.

"Lieutenant, have you seen Lt. Uirik?"

"You must be new, sir."

"Yes. Minutes old."

Kirk grew aware of the condition of his field coat and padded pants. They were pristine, the only thing in the room that was.

"Do I need to win a chess match to get a question answered?" Kirk said.

"Think you could? Commander?" This was someone sitting at the game who spoke, a blue skinned humanoid with a large fin bone on the top of the head. The officer's jacket was hanging inside out over the back of the chair. The stained shirt over selectively scaly skin had torn off sleeves with no rank.

Kirk guessed based on attitude. "I think I could beat all of you at chess, Lieutenant. Yes."

"Tough talk needs to be backed up around here." This was the third person at the table, a woman whose back was to Kirk. She had greased down wavy yellow hair, square ears and rows of knobs on her brows. Kirk didn't recognize her race, but he did recognize her from one of his videos.

"Ensign Heuyunt. I think you go by Huey, correct?"

She turned with a worried look. "Yes, sir. Commander Kirk, I take it?"

"Correct."

This was one of Kirk's two medics. Neither were fully qualified physicians which was why their rank wasn't at least Lieutenant. But they weren't crew, either.

Huey stood up. She had a full fifteen centimeters on him. Kirk imagined Bark saying 'told you so.'

"Uirik will be back in five or less, sir. She had to run an errand."

"You can go back to your game until she gets here."

Kirk took his duffle to the lockers and bio-keyed himself into one of the unused ones. He had to try three to find one that worked. He stuffed his duffle in, considered messaging Spock while he waited, decided to stay focussed and aware of his surroundings instead.

Uirick stepped in carrying personal armor gear over her arm.

"Commander's here," Huey said to her.

Uirick's red pupils sought out Kirk. He got an impression of disappointment.

"Get everyone together. Is there a place to meet?" Kirk said.

"You're looking at it."

"How about the gangway over the mechanical bay instead. It's scenic, at least."

"Yes, sir."

"Will it take you more than fifteen to find everyone?"

"No, sir."

"We'll meet in twenty minutes then."

Seventeen figures stood on the gangway, some at parade rest, some leaning trustingly on the pipe railing.

Kirk approached, stopped before them. "I'm Lt. Commander James Kirk. We're missing two . . .?"

Uirik partly straightened herself. In this light her skin appeared light maroon. "In the dispensary, sir. To be released by mission time."

"Injuries related to a mission?"

"If your mission is drinking, yes."

Kirk avoided sighing aloud. "I see. I also see we have a mission scheduled for twenty hours from now . . ." A blonde-haired, blue-eyed ensign had his hand raised.

"Ensign Upton? Something?"

"You haven't officially taken command, sir."

"I haven't." Kirk had only seen this done once, with a new captain. Maybe it was superstition here. "You want to hear the magic words?"

"Well, not technically magic, sir." Upton flushed slightly, but not as much as one should have in his position.

"Are you a stickler for the rules, Upton? Why is that not in your file?"

Someone snickered.

Upton glanced at someone else, stood straighter. "You haven't officially read the assumption of command."

"All right if I wing it?"

Someone elbowed Upton. "Yes, sir."

"Per Starfleet orders I am officially taking command of light strike team five oscar uniform and light strike team five oscar bravo. Close enough?"

Upton looked down. "Yes, sir."

Kirk rubbed his chin. "Nickname?"

"Uptight," someone muttered behind their hand with a cough.

"I don't have a problem with rules," Kirk said. "Not when they work. But where was I? We're going to do shakedown. And I fully realize I'm the one in need of shaking down. We're going to patrol U32498-2 for four and a half days, and I expect everyone to take it seriously. I want everyone in top form as if we're in hostile territory."

"Sir, U3 has never been inhabited." This was Kirk's second, Uirik.

"Even an uninhabited world can surprise you. And, perhaps more importantly, I want to see what you can do. I trust you want to impress me."

There was some vague shifting and grumbling.

Kirk hauled out a firmer tone. "I expect everyone here to take advantage of a chance to get better, even if it's just coordination. That's what this is." He waited. No one moved. "You are already divided into two teams. But those can be changed." He waited again. "Any trouble with assignments that needs to be dealt with?"

No one moved. Kirk filled his chest, held it. "If anyone is unhappy and doesn't say so. They are officially happy." He waited. "Okay. Very good. That's a lot of happy."

* * *

Spock exited his dorm room for morning class and someone stepped up to him, blocking his path before he could cross the corridor. Spock jerked to a stop rather than run head on into a broad chested senior cadet with nearly square eyebrows and a broad forehead to present them on.

"Plebe. Give me fifty."

Spock stepped back a half step, considered looking both ways to see if he recognized anyone, but expected that to be provoking. Students were hurrying to class and the corridor was busy.

"Right here. Now. You don't hear so well? Surprising ain't it?"

Spock bent to place his padd on the floor, then arranged himself beside it and rapidly did fifty push ups while others slowed to file around him or to watch.

Spock stood, left his padd where it was for now. "Sufficient, Senior Cadet?"

The cadet's mouth twisted. "Sure. That was too easy though."

"I cannot offer a valid comparative opinion regarding that, sir."

The cadet's small brows pulled together. He shook his head and stalked away.

Spock picked up his padd and a familiar pair of nearly un-regulation boots came into view.

"Hey." It was P'Losiwst. "Everything okay?"

"We need to hurry. Even though it is a special section on Federation History and not as strict as some about latecomers."

They made it just in time, but had to sit in the second row to have seats together. P'Losiwst tapped on her padd, pushed it to Spock. It read, "That was only the beginning?"

Spock pushed it back without replying.

Spock was waylaid for chin ups and sit ups before the end of the day. Each time by a different senior. P'Losiwst suggested they exit their last class by the opposite side door which led to a narrow inner corridor that didn't have any windows.

They stopped beside a spare projector stored beside the double doors leading to the main corridor.

"I can bring dinner to your room," P'Losiwst said. "Or are you enjoying the exercise?"

Spock hesitated replying. Kirk had insisted he was earning something. But his pride was requiring repeated applications of discipline.

P'Losiwst studied him."They do seem to choose the busiest public spots to come after you." She adjusted her bag straps on her shoulder. "If it helps, most of the first years are on your side." Her antenna straightened upright and she said in a borrowed voice, "We're in this together against those henchmen."

Spock felt the coin in his pocket. It had been blank initially, but as of yesterday displayed a universal time code and a transmitter id on its small screen. He was suffering the present in hope of the future, a state that was too reminiscent of the past.

"You okay?"

Spock nodded.

"I'll bring you dinner. You don't have a cute boyfriend to bring you food offerings anymore. That must be even rougher than the seniors." She tsked sadly, turned to the doors. "Come on. Untouchable faces time." She reached for the door trigger, gave him a sideways glance. "Eight out of ten. We might have to work on that face."

* * *

Shutan closed Heart of Darkness, tapped the cover of it as if to convince it to stay closed. He concluded his impromptu lecture with, "That is the inner story of this book. A journey into the seething inner soul. Do you see it now?"

"Now that you have described the metaphoric associations to me, yes."

Shutan waited for nearly a minute. "And do you find the illumination of this metaphorical journey into that part of the spirit that morally driven intelligent beings prefer to deny exists, do you find that mode of communication to be pleasing? It is a subtle way of delivering an unsavory point beneath the potential resistance of the ego. Do you find this to be clever, artistic or otherwise? Do you find the message itself thought provoking?"

Spock, who had experienced a Romulan's soul being torn slowly from him and consumed by another Vulcan, found he wasn't particularly impressed with this long dead human's imaginary view on things, historical or not, artistic or otherwise. He shrugged.

Shutan stared. It was the first long stare Spock had received today. The old Vulcan sat back, index fingers touching. "Your father contacted me. To verify that you were being a proper student."

Spock nodded. He didn't know what kind of response was expected.

"Why would he ask this of me?" Shutan said. "It isn't a logical question."

"I have a poor history with tutors."

Shutan's white left brow shot up. "Do you? That is the first promising thing this visit. Last visit it was you showing up in that earth military uniform."

Spock glanced down at his cadet grays. "Now it is I who do not understand."

Shutan's face lost the little animation it had gained, became stony. "I accepted you as a student purely as a test of the power of literature. The power of it to enlighten and broaden those who lack the experiences contained within it. The power to illuminate the layers of art in the world itself around us, be it Vulcan or earth or some remote moon careening out of the galaxy. But I have been reconsidering this experiment during our discussions. I have been forced to significantly reduce the likelihood that you can be connected to these other layers within. The trained Vulcan mind simply does not allow for it."

"We have analyzed a single book, Honored Teacher."

"We already discussed those you read for your class. And you parroted to me what you were taught regarding them. You have only a narrow view of them adopted directly from others."

Spock held his knitted fingers yet more relaxed. "I respectfully request more time to understand."

"Your father's expectations must be adjusted. As do mine. I had too much faith in the power of these." He waved vaguely at the shelves around them on three sides. He huffed, stood unsteadily on his spindly legs. "We will try one more time. Perhaps an easier read." He brought back a tome that smelled of an earth cave, perhaps one containing an ancient crypt. "Dickens."

Spock tipped the cover into the light to read the worn leather indentations. Great Expectations. "My mother has read this."

Shutan sat heavily back in his chair. "Did you read it?"

"No."

"Do not read any other analysis, if you would. I want you to return here with only your own impressions."

"Yes, sir."

"Yes, sir," Shutan echoed flatly.

"I beg forgiveness if it is inappropriate. It is the mode of respect I use at the Academy."

Spock turned the book in his hands, pushed on the leather at the spine and heard it crinkle like the dead skin it was. He parted the covers. The paper was akin to cloth, thick and feathered at the edges of the pages which sent paper fibers into the air as he thumbed. His estimation of success was less than half a percent. And then he would have to explain to his father that he had failed. He closed the book and held it, waited.

Shutan was staring at the books stacked on the table. They had been there when Spock arrived and had gone unmentioned. Shutan huffed through his nose again, a gesture Spock now understood as halfway between a sigh and a snort.

"I am disappointing you," Spock said.

Shutan knitted his fingers and, from his vulture pose, looked at Spock. Spock expected him to do so for many minutes before speaking again. But he spoke right away. "You are the output of a sterile field. You have been isolated intentionally by your world and your family. That is your father's fault, something I will point out to him when we fall short next session, as I expect we will."

Spock nodded formally. It was a relief to have someone arguing on his behalf, if nothing else.

"I do not know if even the earth's greatest literature can save this situation," Shutan said.

Spock indicated the books on the table. "Is that what these are?"

"No. Those books would result in too one-sided of a discussion. I would be reduced entirely to questions without answers. These tomes are approximations of literature that are more accessible. But still a bridge too far for you, as well as a minefield to discuss openly with a sheltered Vulcan child." He lifted one. "Class violence and brutal civil war." He lifted another. "Post apocalyptic comi-tragedy with a wonderfully constructed high culture of cannibalism." He waved another, hesitated speaking. "The hardest. Probably impossible. Human sexuality." He dropped the last one back on the table by itself.

"If I may, Honored Tutor, I do not understand the difficulty."

"One cannot discuss maddening obsession, human love, burning passion, and the animal sexual urge with the immature grandson of T'Pau."

Spock stared. "You assume I do not understand these things already."

Shutan stared. "Yes, I do assume."

Spock wondered how to explain while remaining deferential.

"You are how old?" Shutan sounded short on patience.

"I am a three weeks from sixteen."

"Yes. About what I expected." He sounded derisive now.

Spock subtly pushed his shoulders back. "I would estimate, Honored Tutor, that I am far more familiar with human sexuality than you."

Shutan's brows came down over his watery eyes.

"But I do not know your background to accurately compare," Spock said.

"We shall compare resumes then," Shutan said. "Half of these books contain sexuality at some level, some contain only that. I have read all of them. Analyzed all of them, unblinkingly."

Spock studied Shutan, the fractal patterns in the wrinkles of his face. "I have had a human lover for half a year."

Shutan's brows rose slowly up. "Your father is aware of this?"

"Yes."

"What about your properly selected betrothed from your extended family?"

Spock schooled himself, likely gave away a lot doing so. "I had two. Both bondings failed."

Shutan considered Spock's uniform again as if reading text off the surface of it. "I did not realize your situation."

This blunt reevaluation irked Spock. He put the emotion aside before it could be revealed.

Shutan stared again. "I wish to meet this human."

"He is seven hundred and thirty light years away."

"He. A human male lover. That is not common with our people. This era, that is. Now that raiding tribes no longer steal all the females." He considered Spock a while. "It is impossible that your father allows this to continue."

"He did not approve for some time. He altered his thinking after growing more familiar with James. But you may, of course, verify all of this with my father."

The long stare continued. "You have a picture of this human?"

"I did not bring any devices with me, Honored Teacher."

Shutan stood, brought back a padd older than Spock. Spock searched the public feeds, found Kirk's image from his talk at the Academy, full length, face intent and pleased with communicating his ideas, with being charming. In the auditorium lights his dress uniform glittered at the weave and glowed against the backdrop. The animated image made Spock acutely pained with homesickness that he feared could not be slaked later by any meditation he knew. He handed the device over.

"That reaction of yours was unmistakable." Shutan held the device up vertical for a time. "A soldier. Fascinating. Where is he?"

"He is assigned to the Lohanna Sector, where there is still fighting related to the Colony War."

"He is why you are also now in this military."

Again Spock suppressed his acute annoyance. For all of Shutan's impatience with Spock's inability to see nuance, his teacher himself failed to look for it. "I formed a wish to join Starfleet when I was four years old."

"I see." He looked at the picture again. "A soldier. And away at war." He looked slowly over at Spock. "You worry about him?"

Spock nodded primly, put all of his emotion aside and out of reach.

"This human ranks significantly above you, based on the decorations on his uniform."

Shutan thought longer, stood up. Came back with a book which he pulled from an evacuated archival bag. "This will be interesting to hear you discuss."

The book was flimsy, cheap. Lolita.

"You can read two by next visit."

Spock nodded.

Shutan sat again. "I agree to tutor you for a month more, based solely on this surprise. You are not as flat and emptied as you first appeared."

"I was commanded to be deferential and promised my father I would be."

"I may release you from that at some point. You are a closed book." He glanced at Spock's uniform again. "In an interesting cover." He sat back with narrowed eyes, fingers steepled high in front of him. "We are finished for today."


	23. Details

Chapter 23 - Details

"For an uninhabited world there sure is a lot of crash debris." By product of being in a system adjacent to a war zone, Kirk thought.

He was on scanner. He should have given up the station already to someone else, but wanted to see with all the kinds of eyes the vessel possessed. He wanted to cycle at least three people through each position today. The pilots didn't need to practice piloting, but the medic and security did. Backups tended to only take over when their poor skills were the most dangerous.

The mood in the scuttle's cabin was equitable. Switching around stations at least kept people's minds well occupied. Five were idling aft right now, chatting, playing some kind of hand signal game.

"Land next to that debris field. Careful not to put us down on anything potentially harmful to the craft." Kirk stood up, came behind Ensign Heuyunt to help guide her in, watching for signs he was making her more nervous. Fortunately medics were accustomed to using their hands under stress. They set down hard and the engines went into idle immediately because they were set on automatic.

Heuyunt grunted unhappily. On the upper scanner display, the other scuttle settled behind them, facing outward.

"Not bad," Kirk said. "Name like Huey, though, you should be aces at this."

"Sir?"

"We going out, commander?" Someone in back asked.

"No. We'd need the breathers. Ranran, take the pilot seat. Huey, take the idlers through field trauma drills. Use our drunken dispensary buddy who couldn't make debriefing here as a dummy."

Someone snorted a laugh. Ensign Punter swiped at whoever it was. "We've not done these since refresher, sir. Easier to just beam injured out."

"You're assuming you always can. Seems like a fatal assumption. Huey, I realize he has seniority on you, but do whatever you like with him for the next two hours."

This made the idlers visibly gleeful. Kirk shook his head. But Punter and Jacobs had made their teams look bad by sneaking booze out of the civilian station around Anslad I and getting black-out drunk on it weeks later.

Kirk turned scanner over to yet another crewmember and watched the medical drill Huey arranged. She took out an already unsealed chest wound kit that someone had apparently played with sometime in the past. Kirk's arm muscles bristled. He needed to double check everything, but he needed to do so at a pace that wouldn't lose what felt like good humor he'd gained in the last two days.

"Next time, share the goodies," Huey said to the prone Punter lying on the deck, jacket open. "Keeps everyone else happy and you out of trouble. "Okay. Imagine a sucking chest wound, right side. Come on, it's Punter we've got here, it's easy to imagine."

* * *

Kirk stifled a yawn. It was almost his turn to bunk down for a whole six hours. They and their companion scuttle were running a full scan, which meant flying low to check blind spots, crevices in heavy rock or beneath large crash debris. In hostile territory this would be incredibly dangerous. Kirk worked with Pilot and Scanner on techniques for picking a path that gained them the best angles of attack to present heavy armor and keep close to immediate cover to the most likely hidden emplacements.

Pilot worked quietly, hands moving rapidly. He had everything off auto. It made Kirk nervous initially, the freewheeling, human-prone careening over the rugged gray landscape contrasting blindingly with the black of space beyond.

"This is what we have probes for," Scanner said after being slow in declaring a deep overhang all clear.

Kirk didn't bother to react to this or any other complaints. He waited until they finished the current string of passes to call for a return to patrol at four kilometers altitude. "Practice formations. Switch leads. I'm going to take a break."

"Yes, sir." The pilot's reply was easy going and it would help the others feel the same. Kirk avoided revealing how pleased he was by this. He was doing well, but he was tired, and if he didn't want to mess up and lose precious ground, he needed to rest.

The aft starboard corner of the scuttle held four bunks, although the bottom one just above the floor was rarely used due to being perpetually dusty. Two were empty. Kirk shucked his boots and jacket and rolled into the one at low seat height and pulled the soft wall along the track to seal himself in. The puffy material muted conversation nicely, but wouldn't cut out an alarm. He stripped off his shirt and hung it on a half-broken hook, took up his padd.

Spock's message was the top one.

"James. I expect you are settling into your new role and that you are no longer bored."

Kirk sighed and it sounded airy in his ears. He imagined he could feel Spock's weight on him, pressed close in the small space.

"I have been getting assistance from P'Losiwst in our Leadership course. I think this is also helpful to her, as she does not think through the logic of her, usually correct, answers. Explaining to me assists her with formalizing her understanding. My mid-term scores were better than expected, but I almost ran out of time. As to the other courses of difficulty, I have attended two sessions now with my Literature tutor. He has agreed to keep me on for a time, something I estimated of low likelihood given his credentials and high expectations. He has me reading Lolita this week."

Kirk pulled his hand out from behind his head and reread that line again.

"Shutan seems to believe there is some kind of parallel between that work and my relationship with you. He strongly implied that was why he assigned it. So far I believe it is the opposite. The primary character derives intense pleasure from a single kind of sexual encounter that he is barred from. You are the opposite. But I am unskilled at such analysis, hence the tutoring."

Kirk took a deep breath, shook his head and let it the breath out. He might have to sleep on his reply to Spock and compose it at the end of his break time.

"Shutan seems to believe that literature represents some truer version of existence, but I am starting to believe it blinds him to understanding or even recognizing actual examples of it."

"My Spock," Kirk whispered. "Don't give in."

* * *

Overlander's apartment worked on Spock's senses. The way the light continuously shifted at this height above the ground, the way the background scent had taken on a Vulcan homeyness. Spock stepped through a layering discipline to accompany meditation level two. A state, once practiced, one could quickly slip into if one needed to pull back from the intrusive telepathy of others. But he was not succeeding. Some step of the journey always slipped free, left him adrift and unable to reassemble the state of thought and needing to start at the beginning.

"You are distracted today," Zienn said.

"I beg forgiveness."

"It would be better practice for this technique, but only if you have already managed the desired mental stance at least once."

Zienn remained sitting with hands up before him, eyes half open.

"I will try again."

Spock was moving through the steps as Zienn instructed in a quiet voice when Overlander came home. She placed things on the counter and watched them. Spock opened his eyes.

"Didn't mean to interrupt. Got away almost at the end of shift today," she said.

"We were not succeeding before your arrival," Zienn said.

"Something wrong?"

Zienn looked beyond Spock. "My student is distracted."

"Come and have some juice. I bought mangos from the Thai market, which you seemed to like a lot better."

Zienn stood up. Spock considered continuing to attempt the discipline. Zienn admonished him for it. Spock rose, bowed his head, followed.

Spock pulled a stool closer to the counter where he'd already been served the first glass from the juicer. He could feel Overlander's attention on him despite her moving about the room.

"Can I help with anything, Spock?"

Spock sorted through his emotions. Four days in a row he'd been systematically accosted by senior class members and ordered to perform exercises or lengthy menial chores and errands.

"Everything going all right?"

Overlander set a tall mug of tea down and held it in both hands. Her wavy hair was growing out and she looked less official despite the uniform.

"I have not decided if there is an issue. More importantly, perhaps, I do not believe there is a solution if there is an issue."

She frowned. "What's the non issue?"

"I do not wish to complain."

"Spock. I promised your boyfriend I'd keep an eye on you." She turned to Zienn. "Do you know what it is? You know, from a meld?"

"If I did, I would not be within my rights to inform you."

"Right. I guess I can support that." She flushed, sipped her juice.

Zienn raised a brow as he looked up at her. They mirrored each other with a look of shared meaning. Overlander blew across her tea, waggled her brows. Zienn's expression shifted to smug.

Spock put his glass down. "I am intruding."

Overlander put her tea down. "You aren't. Sit."

Spock hesitated before he obeyed.

"What's going on?"

"Nothing I am incapable of handling." Indeed, it was Spock's spirit being tested, not his competency or his physical abilities, despite the nature of the tasks he was being given.

Overlander leaned her elbows on the counter, clasped hands outstretched. "Let's talk in generalities then. What's the broader question?"

"How does one earn a place?"

"In Starfleet, I assume? Or do you really want it broader than that?"

"Is there a difference?"

"Yes." She rocked her head side to side. "And no."

Zienn raised his chin.

"Want to challenge my logic, Mr. Priest?" She slid Zienn's remaining juice out from under his hand and tossed it down. She put the empty glass down, smiled. When he said nothing, she turned to put more mangos in the hopper of the machine.

"I regret to admit I understood your answer." Zienn stretched out with the empty glass to hand it over.

She took it and got it under the spigot just as bright orange began flowing down a loop of tube.

"You just started at the Academy, Spock. You won't feel a part of things for a while. Middle of second year, maybe. Maybe not until you get some field experiences in third year." She filled both their glasses. "Sometimes you need to be with others under stress to really bond. You have to know you can rely on someone, see them facing real difficulties, to trust them 99%."

"Why not 100?" Zienn said.

"Because you never know."

Zienn held his juice glass up without drinking. "What number do you have assigned to me?"

"What?"

"Percent trust? I am curious the number."

Her thick brown brows went lower. "This doesn't apply to us."

"I reject your logic now." Zienn sipped his juice. "One hundred percent."

"This is how humans find meaning, buddy. Hit or miss. We talk it out."

"I reject it more forcefully in light of that."

They stared at one another.

"You are certain I am not intruding?" Spock said.

"Spock. No. We'll stay on topic." She rotated her tea mug, muttered, "You're a strong ninety nine and a half." She focused her disgruntled expression on Spock. "So what brings up this question about earning a place?"

Spock could not find words he was willing to express. He wished to preserve her apparently high opinion of him, perhaps. He was not certain of the entirety of his motivations.

Overlander sighed. "So, Zienn. Would your kid be like this?"

"Prideful? I should expect."

Overlander turned back to Spock, tugged on his sleeve with her interlocked fingers. "This problem have to do with pride?"

Spock slowly breathed in. "Entirely."

"Okay. I can help then. To really fit in, you are going to need to swallow a lot of that pride of yours. You can be great at what you do, but you can't obviously believe you are. Or you can, but only enough to inform others of it. Égalité, Spock." She waited as if that was the answer to everything. "Help any?"

"You are echoing James. So yes."

"You are too smart at a few things. You can be that, but you need to still mesh with everyone around you, not matter their weaknesses. You can't go it alone. Not in space." She tilted her head to the side. "Not anywhere, maybe."

* * *

Spock placed himself at his dorm room desk in front of his repaired padd and entered the connection id from the Antaras disc. A young human male with brown hair covering one of his eyes looked up at him through the screen. "Cadet . . . Spock. Correct?"

"Yes. Correct."

The man smiled as if in afterthought. "Hi. I'm Polaner. I'm doing the pre-interviews today. Please bear with me. Ah, yes, there it is. We had trouble getting your file."

Polaner's eyes were fixed below the camera, brow furrowed. "You're a first year cadet. So. I have a few questions." He sat back from his device and waved his hands as he spoke. "We do a bit of additional screening before we bring people into the lab for the recruitment roundup."

"Are you aware of my scheduling issues next term and year?" Spock said.

"Yes, I see that. Not a problem. The demand for good people only increases from second to third year. We like to lock in commitments. If we can." Polaner flipped his hair, revealing both eyes. "You don't have much in the way of a research record. But you do have . . . a few unusual glowing recommendations." He met Spock's gaze through the screen. "Can you tell me why you think Absom and Chanel recommended you so highly?"

"It is not in my nature to guess."

Polaner processed this. "Right. Do you like having them as instructors?"

"Once one understands their personal version of the rules apply before the general rules, then they are like all the others. Both are eminently qualified."

"Their personalities are . . . ?"

"No matter."

"I can see why they both like you."

Someone off screen spoke to Polaner. He slid to one side and a mid forties woman with pale hair streaked with pink and lemon yellow came into view. "This is my boss, Yadis. She wants to talk to you."

"Hi, Spock. Or live long and prosper I think your people say."

Spock responded in kind with his hands firmly in his lap.

She smiled as if finding him quaint. "I saw your impulse engine models. And saw the dates on the data. You did that work in a few days?"

"I had to wait for the sensor data to be collected before beginning the models."

"I understand that. You seem to be a fast learner, is my point."

"I had difficulty understanding the mathematics of the models. It was new to me."

"Right." She nodded, made a face. She'd been leaning down into the frame and instead pulled a chair over and sat beside Polaner. "I got the sense looking through your bullet points that you didn't have much background in modeling engine resonances."

"None, sir."

She smiled again, somewhat flat and official. "We aren't Starfleet here. We go by first names."

"I see."

Yadis turned to Polaner. "Let's bring Spock in." She turned back to the camera. "You are a little early in your program to be joining a project like ours. But we'd like to show you what we're doing here on moon base seven. That's where we have the roundup. If you're interested."

Spock thought about fitting in, thought about seeing moonbase seven's laboratories, thought about learning in such an environment. "I am."

"We, in turn, are interested in anyone who is smart," Polaner said as he made a note.

Yadis snorted. "We have too many smart people around here already. Should be more than enough, I should think. Twice as many as should be enough." She gave Spock a weak smile. "The absolute brightest don't take direction particularly well. Even though we're a skunkworks, it can be hard to keep everyone in the realm of non-warp engine technology."

"Perhaps you need an intern specialized specifically in management," Spock said.

Her face went still. "You interested in management?"

Spock felt himself straighten. "Not in the least."

She laughed. "Worth a try."

"I know, quite well, a fellow student who is. She organizes all of our group work and keeps social track of a surprising number of our fellow cadets. Directing others in such a manner is an instinctive ability I find fascinating because I do not possess it."

Yadis moved her tongue around her teeth. "A management intern. I kind of like this idea. Put the coin down for two," she said to Polaner. She stood up, leaned down into the camera's view. "Nice speaking with you, Cadet. You seem pretty well adjusted. That's always a plus."

Spock considered the implications of that regarding the others working on the project. "Thank you."

"Polaner will register your friend's information. And we'll see you at the roundup."

Spock gave Polaner P'Losiwst's name and id. Even if he miscalculated about his fellow cadet's interest in a position, he was confident she would appreciate attending such a prestigious recruitment meeting.

Spock settled into bed with Kirk's latest message. He had perhaps miscalculated in his explanation of Shutan's reading assignment. Kirk clearly bristled at the implication. Spock stuck to generalities in his subsequent reply.

* * *

A/N: I'm going to be offline for 2 weeks in a heavily blocked country. So no post next week. Everyone take care!


	24. Reach

Chapter 24 - Reach

"I don't know if that's good enough, Plebe."

The senior cadet's hard gaze seemed practiced rather than deeply felt. Spock had just completed a basic but extensive data entry task for the cadet's group project. The cadet finally took the tape, as if he didn't really want it.

The cadet leaned closer. "It's like everything's too easy for you. What can I make you do to make you actually miserable?"

Spock didn't even know this cadet's real name. His nickname was Honker, because of his crooked, flat nose that tied in surprisingly well with his asymmetric face.

Spock could feel P'Losiwst's attention from across the break area. A senior cadet mentor was at the drink dispenser. He looked over his shoulder, went back to adding three doses of chocolate to his coffee, for which the machine required repeated manual code entry.

"I asked you a question," Honker said.

Spock raised his chin, then lowered it again. "I do not know, sir."

"Well. Think of something for next time. Or else."

Spock resisted sounding impatient or annoyed. He regretted those emotions were even present in him. Perhaps this practice of harassment was indeed valuable to him, even if the tasks were not. "Yes. Sir."

The cadet strode away, body held high. P'Losiwst approached. Her antenna were curled out to the side, a sympathetic arrangement. She pulled out a chair and dropped her bag on it.

"Hey Spock. Take a rest. I could use one too."

Spock joined her. The other three cadets at the table considered him at length before returning to their discussion. Being singled out attracted additional attention. But unlike Vulcan, the diversity here meant he was not isolated by it. And to a degree he functioned as a bulwark for his peers by keeping the enemy occupied.

P'Losiwst put a hot chocolate in front of Spock, slid into the seat beside her bag. She had a sweet blue beverage before her. Spock watched her wrinkle her nose from the bubbles.

"When I was a kid we drank these one after the other because we thought it would make our skin bluer. Our cousins told us it would and we believed them way too long." She smiled weakly. "I still love the stuff. And the machine has a program for it. I couldn't believe it when I found it."

Spock pretended to sip his hot chocolate, engaged his padd to display his messages. There were two new replies from Kirk. Due to lags in replying and comm uplink their conversation had multiplied into several threads that were offset in time. This gave the impression of communicating several times a day most days.

"On another mission now. Learning as fast as I can. If I rely on people below me too long instead of knowing enough, they are going to get used to bypassing me. Which I don't want. You'll know when I reply to your other messages that I've gotten a chance to eat. I figure I've got my head down already so I can poke out a reply. Right now waiting on an equipment reconfiguration. It helps a lot to chat with you. I can tell I'm losing touch with the outside world in between messages. Got to keep hold of all levels of what's happening. I don't like how buried in the immediate I get sometimes. Seems like asking for trouble."

A second message: "You asked about rest. I get about six hours every thirty. They issue us a supplement to make sure that's enough. Not something I've ever seen on a ship. And not sure I'm sanguine about this long-term. No one else worries. Sleeping less than the enemy is just one more advantage. I skipped the supplements yesterday and that left me missing you only four minutes before I fell asleep unlike the rest period before. It's going to be a while before I get leave and we can video chat. For now, all these messages are a blessing and they keep me grounded."

Kirk had a preference for spoken replies and Spock would be able to do so in half an hour, so he closed the messages and stared at the device's falsely deep, aqua-hued screen. P'Losiwst slurped up the bottom of her drink.

"Missing your beau?" She made a face. "Obviously. Stupid question. You have your lit tutor today."

Spock nodded, pulled up his reading for Shutan.

"I wish I had a Lit Tutor. And a Propulsion Tutor. And probably even a Bridge Station Tutor." She tried to sip her drink and the straw made a wet airy noise. "I wish I could hire someone to do my courses. Actually. You know what's terrible. I'd have to hire like three different beings to cover it all. What's that say about this program?"

She smiled weakly. "I'll let you read."

The others at their table departed. P'Losiwst listened in to the students at the next table for one minute and forty-seven seconds. "What are you reading this week?"

"Lolita."

"Earth book, I assume. What's it about?" She hunched over her empty drink. "Sorry. I'll leave you be."

"It is no problem. It may be helpful to discuss it before meeting with my tutor."

Her antenna curled forward. "Is it interesting?"

Spock resisted shrugging, a gesture he'd found tempting to copy in the last two weeks. "It is about illogical human self destruction. Through an obsession with sex and possession of a forbidden individual."

"Sounds really good so far."

Spock raised a brow. "I must analyze it as an artistic work and as usual, I do not know where to begin."

She smiled. "I suck at that too."

"Your grades in Ethics through Galactic Literature are better than mine."

She smiled enough to show her two sets of pointed teeth at the corners. "I bullshit better." She sat back. "In the work, Lolita, the author demonstrates a fundamental human weakness using an extreme example that the reader cannot misconstrue. But it can be generalized to include all humans, and all forms of desire. All desire contains the seeds of self delusion and destruction."

"And you have not read the book."

She shrugged. Smiled the way Kirk would if he had the same muscles in his face. She'd picked up more human facial expressions as the term went on, used them to supplement the position of her antenna.

Spock exhaled, almost made the mistake of sighing. "However, I must have an honest answer for Shutan or I will suffer his impatient criticism."

"The honest answer is the book didn't mean anything to you."

Spock wasn't certain that was true, but he nodded to acknowledge he'd heard her.

* * *

"Did you find any parallels with your own situation?" Shutan asked.

Coming hours after his discussion with P'Losiwst, Spock marveled that his fellow cadet was in fact more restrained and considerate of his person than this elderly Vulcan.

"Very few."

Shutan's wrinkles deepened when the sun came out from behind a rare cloud. "What did you think of the narrator?"

"He lies to himself."

"Does your boyfriend do that?"

Spock's arm muscles tightened. "What do you mean?"

Shutan tapped his steepled fingertips together and stared at Spock as if reading him. "Does he assume things in contradiction to reality to defend his actions?"

"May I enquire the reason for your obsession with my relationship?"

Shutan's fingers continued tapping. "You reveal more by deflecting. Do you not recognize this behavior from what you just read?"

Spock had his body under control but less so his burgeoning annoyance.

Shutan said, "When we see ourselves in literature, we learn in a way pure meditation cannot be a vehicle for." He huffed through his nose. "It is unfortunate for Vulcans that they lack this opportunity. It causes cultural stagnation. But go on. Does the narrator lie only to himself?"

Spock considered this for a time. "He also lies to the reader, perhaps. But I find that illogical. The narrator is not real and has no need for obsfucation between itself and the reader."

"The narrator pretends to be real. Behaving real makes him more real seeming which renders the experience of reading more powerful. That is an obvious one. Do you see anyone you know in the narrator?"

"No."

Shutan's eyes shined with interest. "The words unspoken are at least as important as those that are spoken."

The shape of Spock's emotion was shifting, becoming of a form he did not wish to contain. "You are amused at my expense. As if I am no more than a book you are perusing."

"Tell me how your boyfriend is not like the narrator. That should be easy."

Spock warmed as if his muscles were preparing to move.

"We're doing well, Spock. You are reacting deeply to a literary work."

"I am reacting to your questions. I did not react at all while reading."

"That's implies that you have failed to learn to ask the right questions as you read. I'll rephrase my question. What about the narrator makes you uncomfortable?"

"Nothing. He is mentally broken. The book is not about reality."

"What is his real crime? In the story the reader is, ostensibly, surprised to find out he's been jailed for murder, not for the running confession of sexual abuse. What does that say?"

Spock shook his head. "I do not have a guess."

"Why does he kill?"

"Revenge for losing his possession."

"Worth killing for?"

Kirk had repeatedly asserted that he would kill anyone who harmed Spock. Spock still remembered those moments with a distorted fondness.

"Depends upon the individual."

Shutan raised his chin. "Surprisingly understanding from someone who adheres to Surak's teaching."

"The narrator is not real."

"The logic which dictates Vulcan mores is also not real. It is a construct. Did you find the possessiveness familiar?"

"All mating has this feature."

"Again with the deflection. Do you wish me to form assumptions entirely from what you fail to say? I said last time that it would be interesting to hear you discuss this work. And I was correct." Shutan paused. "Becoming angry with me does not change my words." His voice grew rough with use. "Literature is best when it challenges. It is not entertainment, that aspect is bait. Give me the narrator's qualities. The narrator is . . .?"

"Possessive."

"Very much so. As a result?"

"He has no significant life beyond this need. Everything he does is in service to this obsession. He is a self-made prisoner."

"Does he wish it to be otherwise?"

"Only very briefly."

"And he is explicitly self aware at those times. Why does he wish to be better?"

"I do not know."

"Guess."

Spock looked away, found only one answer that echoed too much. "He wishes to earn Lolita."

Shutan paused for three minutes. Spock regathered himself but resisted the detachment that would leave him unable to answer intelligently.

"Another quality."

"Obsession with physical traits of youthful beauty. The girlish fashions of it even, although not the appropriately undeveloped intellect. That he derides. He honors innocence. Purity." Spock stopped.

"What do beings fear most?"

"Mortality, typically. Vulcans fear shame more highly."

"Spock, you are fascinating on the defensive and the offensive. I do not care what you do with yourself. You are not my kin and the mountains know I would never hold a candle to your father for strictness of practice. Do you think I am judging you?"

"I do not know."

"Large power differences corrupt relationships surrounding mating. Do you not agree?"

"Not necessarily. How beings interact with each other in private can be made independent of external forces," Spock said.

"You mean the way the narrator fantasizes of a desert island? The way Lolita demands ever increasing bribes?"

"I was not speaking of the book. I was speaking of a balance of giving and care between parties that only matters to them."

"The narrator goes on at length about caring."

"He fantasizes about caring, but he is broken and is merely selfishly contriving to possess."

"Not your experience, I assume."

"No."

Shutan's face relaxed and it drooped more with age. "Other qualities of the narrator?"

"He is well educated. He uses this as a mask. He uses high mindedness to couch a base need."

"What about Lolita?"

"She is vacuous."

A long pause. "Is she really?"

Spock reconsidered the small hints otherwise. "Perhaps again the narrator lies. His deeds are less significant if she is intellectually insubstantial as it decreases agency. Although, that is a morally questionable position."

"Very good, Spock. Vulcans are too accustomed to words as truth. Literature itself creates a greater truth through lies. You need to learn to play along, but know you can be played as well."

Spock vaguely nodded.

"Shall we go over the Dickens? Being from a form of aristocracy, perhaps we can make you uncomfortable there as well."

* * *

The hourly public shuttle descended toward the lunar surface. Space beyond the arc of the moon's horizon appeared black in contrast to the sun-glared surface. Interlocking curved shadows rose up, loomed around the craft and became the high ridges of craters. A landing pad irised open and they passed from shadow into pinpoint rows of lights flashing in sequence to guide the ship in.

P'Losiwst was wearing one of her human styled suits of shiny Andorian material. Her muscles radiated wiry excitement. Four other cadets were on their shuttle, three of them seniors. They pointedly ignored Spock and P'Losiwst.

Moon Base Three was busy with workers and tourists. They made their way to the transit lounge, slowly due to P'Losiwst's curiosity about the station.

The arrived by transporter at the dark side Antaras lab in the midst of the other recruits, twelve cadets and five others in civilian wear. The four cadets from the earlier shuttle stared upon seeing Spock and P'Losiwst again, glanced at each other.

An outer lobby of sorts had been made out of the awkward areas leading away from the airlocks. And demos were configured on a range of display technologies in the arc of windowed space.

The pink and yellow haired Yadis drew everyone's attention to her. "Hello everyone. Glad you could make it to our remote outpost. We do a lot of lab work that no one wants done near population centers but that must be done in an actual gravity well. Most of our day to day is non-hazardous, but we sometimes crank up our test fields pretty high. We do that outside on a rig we call The Sled, which we'll show you later. First we want to show you our pride and joy of the month, the Korso Field. That's in Lab 2. We only take two at a time in there. So make sure you get your turn. With that, please come in and look around, talk to the staff. Don't be shy."

Spock stepped away from the bulk of cadets gathered around a large glowing, seething tank. He looked around for P'Losiwst who was no longer beside him. She stepped up on his other side carrying two drinks, handed him one, and winked.

They circled the labs and demos that were open rather than waiting in line. Spock read the displays and listened to the technical discussions. P'Losiwst watched the people.

They were standing beside the last of the major demos which no longer had a line when Yadis approached. "Any questions, Spock?"

"Quite a range of technology."

"Yes. We get flack for that. But we can't know which breakthrough is going to yield a viable new engine." She smiled at P'Losiwst. "This must be your colleague."

P'Losiwst held out her dainty hand with a flash of silver nail paint and they shook. P'Losiwst said, "Do most of the staff live on the moon?"

"No. Nearly all of them live on earth and commute every four days. Two live in high orbital stations. That's becoming more popular."

"Unlike Moon Base 3 you've installed full gravity in the labs," P'Losiwst said.

"Everything we develop has to run on a ship under one g."

"Your support is private or governmental?"

"Both. And both cause us headaches. Want to shadow while I circulate and we can talk more?"

P'Losiwst handed her third drink to Spock and walked on her toes.

"Have you seen our rig yet, Spock?" Yadis gestured at a cluster of people in collared shirts with an embroidered Antaras logo on the shoulder. "One of you take Spock back to The Sled. Thanks."

After some glances all around, a tall human male pushed off the wall. He passed through the unsteady light of the demos and came toward Spock. He had Kirk's coloring, but his hair was longer and carefully mussed and his face was narrower and his chest flat and broad. His body gave off an aura of relaxed uncaring. Spock felt him approach, wondered at his senses keying in on this random human's physicality.

"Come on."

Spock followed the sauntering figure down a side corridor. They stopped at a panel with status lights on it under a diagram of a generic engine pod on a pair of rods and a long narrow base. "Thank god Yadis didn't insist on a show off run for you guys. Always knocks the next set of tests out of whack."

He switched the display settings with impatient pokes. Spock stood with hands behind his back, studying the figure before him while appearing to study the display. It was as if this human shared some key aspect of Kirk that triggered a similar response in him. Spock had not believed attractiveness could work upon him so rapidly. It fascinated and alarmed him.

"It'll be a few." He looked Spock up and down, too slowly to be simply verifying the uniform. "You're only a first year."

Spock nodded and retreated farther within his controls.

"I'm Kreos. Dr. Yadis said your name, something Vulcan."

"Spock."

"Right." He looked away, flipped open the view port beside the controls, leaned to the side. "Can almost see from here. You can see the track anyway."

Spock stepped closer. The view port's material was curved at the edges and warped the view of a long gray track engraved in the lunar dust. Kreos stepped in right behind Spock and looked over his shoulder. His aura teased at Spock's senses. And his violating Spock's space reminding Spock of Hully's difficulty with Ensign Oppo on the Apollo.

"There's the light on the edge of the sled. Right now it's mounted with an older engine we're benchmarking. Everyone loves our rig because so many engines have already been benchmarked on it."

The scent of Kreos, the distinctive energy in his muscles worked upon Spock. He remained fixed at the porthole despite the man's closeness and tried to pin down what aspect or combination was generating this response.

"We're clear." Kreos stepped away, sounded bored. "Come on."

Free of the closeness. Spock exhaled, straightened, and followed.

The previous group came through to the lab station proper, talking about the senior cadet competition, how getting hired to such a project should count toward their color All-Arounds. They quieted as they passed Spock, started up again at a bend in the corridor.

"There's an access tube runs parallel to the track. It's inflated to make it retrievable when we make the runs." He triggered opened a panel and flipped the interlock controls and air hissed.

Spock felt an unwarranted desire to retreat rather than follow through the circular yawning opening. Logically, he was in no danger. He followed.

"You're the quiet type," Kreos said as he worked the controls inside the interlock. His voice echoed. "Overwhelmed by my stunning charisma, I guess." He smiled, not a friendly smile.

The door sealed shut and air hissed again. The outer door rolled aside, beyond it stretched a shining uneven cylinder. Spock hesitated, studying Kreos's eyes which were not green, but dark aqua like the blank screen of a padd.

"Lighten up," Kreos said. Mockingly, Spock estimated.

They strode into the bubble tunnel. Double rings connected heavy clear plastic into a tube with noble gas in between for insulation. Their footsteps sounded dry and dead hollow. The air brushed by, cooled by the flooring which appeared to sit directly on the moon surface. Lights glared outside, coloring the plastic and obscuring what would be a stunning view of the stars. They walked a quarter of a kilometer.

"You have any friends?" Kreos asked.

Spock waited until they'd halted to respond. "Vulcans do not subscribe to friendship."

Kreos scoffed. "Right. Well, here's the track. The boxes you see along the track are the triggers and sensors. The engine is usually mounted self contained. The track is forty kilometers long. The tunnel is only four kilometers. We use this for inspection between spacewalks. And demos."

He started walking again, away from the lab. Spock followed, tried to ignore the acute physicality of his humanness. It distressed Spock that internal ugliness was not impacting his response to outward attractiveness as it logically should. He still did not understand why he was responding at all.

"Sled." Kreos stopped and gestured.

Outside was a heavy platform, much larger than expected. It dwarfed the engine mounted above it. The ground and rocks around the track had been scoured bare of dust by the disturbance of the tests, appeared to be coral reefs.

"Since you don't talk, I assume you don't have any questions." Kreos stood expectantly with one brow raised.

"I assume the sled is a significant solid mass to make the weight of the engine less impactful to the test."

"Obviously."

Spock looked out at the sled. Moon dust coated the engine and sled with a pale haze. It didn't look like it would ever move. It looked derelict. Spock studied his emotions, found not only a dislike of the man standing nearby, but of himself as well.

"Thank you," Spock said, and indicated that he was ready to depart.

Another derisive snort.

At the interlock, Spock stood to the side opposite the controls, hands clasped behind him, head down.

"And he avoids me now." Kreos chuckled, stepped into the interlock.

Spock had no choice but to join him. The door rolled closed and the sound of Kreos's voice closed in as well.

"Spock, you should try getting laid."

"For what purpose?"

"It'd work wonders. And who knows, you might even like it."

The outer door automatically opened. Another staff member and recruit were waiting. Spock stepped by them and while he strode unhurriedly, didn't stop until he was back at the reception.

There were many fewer recruits around and the lighting had been dimmed. P'Losiwst and Yadis were near the drink table, talking animatedly.

Spock joined them, picked up a glass of white wine that had warmed. The women kept talking. Spock felt eyes on him, turned. Kreos was back with the other staff members, laughing at something.

The public shuttle ride was quiet, only half full. They were accompanied by three other cadets, but they were yawning or napping. P'Losiwst was madly typing notes from the evening on her small padd as alert as ever. Spock steepled his fingers, meditated at level two until his mind was at ease and his logic could assemble events factually.

Despite Spock's certainty that he'd not outwardly reacted and that he'd detected no telepathy, it was possible that Kreos had perceived Spock's attraction to him. Spock deeply disliked this notion, but logically, could not dismiss it.

"What'd you think of the lab?" P'Losiwst said.

"It was informative."

"But?"

"I found one of the staff members to be highly obnoxious."

"Which one?"

"Kreos."

"Not the one I was thinking of. There was another that seemed like an ass. I'll tell Yadis culture is an issue."

Spock looked out the viewport at the stars. He better understood Kirk's distress about his sudden feelings for Noel. Spock's own desires had become untrustworthy to himself. Despite applying rigorous logic, Spock still could not shake the sense of attraction even in his memories of events.

"You interested in a position? I think I am."

"My acceptance, which would be delayed in any event, should have no bearing on yours."

She lowered her padd and studied him. "It does though. You okay?"

"Indeed."

The blue and white arc of the earth grew in the port windows and ceased growing as they established orbit in preparation for docking.

Spock wondered where he would be, psychologically, at this moment were he not already deeply attached to Kirk. With his inexperience and dearth of other affection, would he have accepted the attentions of Kreos if they were offered simply because this attraction was so strong? He could not dismiss the possibility. That other path was not entirely knowable.

This was why Lolita had distressed Spock so. It wasn't because of Kirk, it was because of him. He had no defenses, or would have had none if Kirk had been abusive. Kirk had stepped into his life and acted as his defenses, the ones he'd lacked. Spock had been lucky.

P'Losiwst looked up from her padd mid-tap. Spock sensed her attention. She considered him for a time as if checking on him, then bent back over her padd when Spock pressed his steepled index fingers to his lips.


	25. Incident, Part 1

Chapter 25 - Incident, Part 1

Spock and P'Losiwst passed through the rear gate to campus closer to the first year dormitories. The low triangles from shielded lights marked the edges of the abstract open areas between the buildings. The night air hung breezeless and the fog had settled in dilute and glowing. The walkway narrowed and their footsteps echoed.

"I said it already, four times, but thank you, Spock." P'Losiwst said. "I really . . . It was really nice of you to push for me."

"I simply made a logical suggestion."

"Still. You don't expect anything in return. I'm not used to that."

They passed a rise of grass with a brass sundial upon it. The sundial and everything else carried a weighty darkness below it. Ahead, within campus proper, the pavement seams glowed, marking a grid around the benches and concrete planters and casting shadows upward.

P'Losiwst walked with her antenna bent forward, a posture Spock would have expected to be one of defeat. Perhaps it could be a kind of defeat to rely on others.

They reached the long gymnasium building on the right side. Pounding on mats and sports balls bouncing thudded between the buildings. The long row of low square windows cast an orange glare out onto the grass and walkway. Quite a few cadets congregated outside the closed double doors at each end.

The areas ahead between the dormitories and the curved glass of the connective corridors were deserted. It was well into night, well after curfew if there had been a morning muster. They had permission to return late, but Spock thought it simpler to not encounter anyone official. He looked forward to meditation and two hours of sleep before Astronomy at oh eight hundred.

Spock heard rapid movement and sensed hot psychic attention behind him. He turned. Three figures in Academy blues were approaching with dark hoods over their heads, the seams of which gave the appearance of a Gorn head beneath the fabric.

"What the?" P'Losiwst muttered.

The first figure took hold of Spock's right forearm and the third tried to grab his other. Spock flipped the first figure upside down, then had to catch him and lower him to the ground to avoid injury. The second figure leapt at Spock from shunting P'Losiwst to the side. He put an elbow hold around Spock's neck. The significant bulk of him pressed against Spock's back, pulled weightily as if he had lifted his feet to drag Spock down. Other silhouettes shifted in and out before of the gymnasium windows. Spock expected them to interfere, but as they moved farther from the light, he saw that they too were hooded.

Spock dropped violently, heaved, flipped the bulky figure over his head into the midsection of the next closest assailant. Someone new took hold of Spock's left arm. He verified that it wasn't P'Losiwst before knocking this assailant's feet out from under her. She fell on her backside with a colorful, high pitched curse. Another figure with exceptionally long legs stepped over her and came at Spock. Spock feinted one way, then committed the other and neck pinched this one and lowered her to the walkway beside the first, who was rolling to get up. He tapped her hand out from under her with his foot and she cursed again as her body smacked the pavement.

Spock stood straight. The figures hesitated approaching now. P'Losiwst was in the middle of a scuffle beside an overflowing flower planter rimmed with ivy. The scuffle quieted. All the figures wore third year Academy blues. One of them whacked another on the arm with the back of a hand and both approached. Spock felt a parallel approach of three from behind. Two more joined those in front.

Spock waited until the last moment to shift to the right, on the assumption that they'd expect him to head toward his companion. He bent the assailant behind to the right full over, lifted a thigh, pushed her body horizontally into the arms of two approaching in front. As expected, they caught their compatriot and stumbled backwards into another running forward. Spock let the other three lay hands on him so he could sense precisely where they were. He swept his right foot behind his own left leg and spun to knock down the closest on the left, fell with him to neck pinch him. Did the same to another who hadn't the sense to let go as the four of them fell, with Spock dropping his legs to drag everyone down as hard as possible.

Spock shoved the last one down fully under him as he regained his feet. Two more approached. One of them stood in the orthogonal limbed pose of an earth martial arts practice. Spock sighed aloud, waited. He caught the woman's arm out of the air, which turned her enough he could take up her knee and drop her gently to the ground on her side. She curled and scissored her legs to flip back to standing, immediately kicked out at him. Spock caught her leg, lifted it up, forcing her into a handstand, which she rolled out of away from him.

Spock heard the phaser only in the memory which played back as he lay with his face on the gritty cement. He wormed his hands across the cement to get them under his chest. His sense of balance skewed fifteen degrees. He feared he could roll away into the side of the nearby building. He shouldn't push up, shouldn't put a knee under himself to try to get to his feet. He shouldn't. Logically, he'd be stunned again if he did.

Spock pushed against the ground, pushed his weight up into the crooked, hazy, shifting world of orange glare. He didn't hear the phaser this time or feel the ground striking his chest.

Awareness returned as scattered, confusing impressions. These swept away to grayness, swept back, tumbled, refused to be organized into a coherent waking universe. There was weight on his chest, awkward weight with hard joints and highlights of warmth. Peeved anger in his head that was not his own. Voices, shifting attention, electric muscles and hyperactive excitement. Someone was moving his arm and now it was pinned down to the side of something warm. He focused on his fingers. Skin.

Spock began inwardly, methodically sorting through the invasion in his mind, impressions of wholly unfamiliar things kept flooding in, clothing, swirls of blue figures, pearl eyes, familiar but strangers, mocking laughter of no one present right then. It blanketed Spock's inner reality, clashed with the disjointed outer one. Kirk had accidentally flipped their mind touch into a meld of this depth. Starting from that, Spock set himself to sorting his mind out the same way he had then, one aspect at a time, barrier advancing behind the sorting.

"Spock?" P'Losiwst's voice and breath on his face, her view of the darkness, including some sweeping, burning infrared Spock didn't normally see. Her presence. With her voice, her view of his slack face, bare shoulders, he could sort her thoughts out cleanly from his own, separate their minds all at once, block his thoughts out from hers. The world washed clearly into his solitary mind, impressions connected together into a sensical whole.

"Spock?" This was urgently hissed out, then P'Losiwst's forehead rested on his chest. Her antenna bumped him on the chin.

Hands took hold of Spock's arms, his knees, a shin, pinched tight. Someone had his foot. The air brushed him everywhere. He was hefted into the air bearing P'Losiwst's bundled weight on his chest, her pointed knees pressing hard to his ribs. Awareness receded, came in on another wave with no time sense attached.

Someone grunted. The world swung one way, over compensated the other. Footsteps shuffled ungainly. "What do you think?" "Lawn?" Spock turned his head. Geometric concrete shapes went by in shades of darkness. He recognized the edge of the unlit plaza in his crooked, half-upside down view.

Spock wiggled his hands, adhesive tore at the hair on his arms. More hands took painful hold, slipped, re-gripped. They began to progress more regularly and the air felt cold on his back.

"Fountain!"

"Fountain?" Derisive. "They haven't earned the fountain." More uneven tugging, grunting, shuffling.

"I think the lawn. Just make sure they're secure."

Walkway sconces passed at eye level, receded. Night flowers in a planter scented the air then wafted away. The surface was dark here, no blue light emitted from between the squares of pavement.

Spock ignored the tearing hairs and skin on his arm and rocked his wrist to free it, shifting the grip of someone's wiry fingers. "Sure fountain," someone said just above him. "Give me a hand here, Thumper. He's getting loose." More hands grabbing hard, bunched up connective tissue. Spock tugged to retrieve his limbs but they merely quivered in the remnants of the stun. The pathetic restraint was absolute. Spock's heart began to gallop. He thrashed in his mind, tugged hopelessly against the many holds, couldn't find a discipline to equal the depression on his nerves or return himself to his own will against the instinct to thrash.

"Fountain!" Someone announced gleefully. Spock and P'Losiwst swung to the side and feet shuffled in a new direction.

Spock imagined the cold water, the shock to his skin and muscles, mouth and nose submerged. He heaved bodily against the clinging hands. His rubbery muscles responded sluggishly, uselessly. His heart raced more, fluttered. He didn't want to be carried anymore. He didn't want to be stunned anymore.

Spock threw open his mind, felt the hands on him, the cacophony of intentions, exhilaration, camaraderie, a righteousness of action. He smelled wet on the air, heard the water nozzle in the center of the fountain, flowing low at night, barely burbling. He clenched his eyes closed and projected his frantic emotions outward. P'Losiwst squeaked. Stumbling footsteps, slipping fingers, a weightless rush and then something unyielding struck hollow through Spock's skull from the back to the front.

* * *

P'Losiwst jerked against the tape securing her to Spock's naked body. She wriggled free just enough to grab hold of and shake Spock's arms.

"Please be all right. Please be all right. Oh, Andoris Goddess, please be all right." She looked up. "You idiots. You dropped him on his head."

"Call medical, someone," a masked figure said before ducking and stepping away.

Figures moved away to the shadows, came back unmasked. Figures in white with reflective badges and cuffs beamed in, put equipment cases down beside them there at the edge of the plaza. One dug out a safety cutter and ran it along the crooked strips of engineering tape.

Another figure beamed in. Lt. Grange turned around with a scratch of boot on cement. His eyes stopped at each face cast into reverse shadow by the medical team's worklamps. "What happened?"

P'Losiwst tugged free of the remaining strands of tape and stumbled to her feet. She picked at and ripped at a scrap on her arm. She was naked, which showed off her two primary and four secondary breasts.

"These blithering idiots . . ." She stepped up to Grange without regard to her lack of uniform, stared him down. " . . . dropped Spock on his head."

Grange leaned back from the vision before him. "You should maybe get a covering, cadet?"

P'Losiwst put her hands on her hips, tilted her head. "When I get a chance, sir."

Grange blinked. He wasn't exactly shy, but he was distracted.

One of the medics turned his head. "Lieutenant. He has to go to Med One."

Grange stepped past the vision of P'Losiwst. Spock was lying senseless on the ground with an IR blanket stuffed around him. "That bad?"

The other medic said, "He's a hybrid. We can't take him if Med One is accepting incoming."

"Move aside."

Grange stepped over Spock to stand astride him, signaled for Med One ER and only had to wait four seconds for the dissolution scan to begin.

Everyone in Med One's emergency unit moved with the same deliberate rapidness. Grange was grabbed by a bulky Tellerite on the transporter platform and forced to step aside. A backboard was unclipped from the plexi flooring of the transporter pad and raised up with Spock on it. More staff moved in in their wake, laid another board into place.

Spock's backboard was latched to a hovering gurney and four staff converged on it. The silvery blanket was pushed aside, scanners warbled, a complicated sensor strip was pressed across Spock's chest amidst the crooked strips of engineering tape.

"Pulse and respiration is within a standard deviation of Vulcanoid normal." "Who's on xeno tonight? Anyone on the floor right now?"

Spock's head tipped to the side and his eyes cracked open. Grange shuffled closer, tried to get into Spock's field of view through the movement around the gurney.

"Put him in 5C. You with him?"

"He's coming around." A strap was brought up over Spock's thighs with the blanket bunched under it.

"Lieutenant? You with him?"

Grange looked up. Nodded.

"Keep him awake. We're lucky he is. Got it? Get him talking."

The gurney was pushed out of the room into a brightly busy corridor. Grange had to trot to keep up. At a corner where they stopped to wait for traffic to clear, he leaned down. "How are you doing, Cadet?"

Spock blinked, seemed to think about the question.

"I need you to tell me aloud, Cadet. Just tell me anything." It was easy to sound obnoxiously commanding when desperation threatened.

Spock's lips moved and Grange tried to guess what he'd said.

"You're at Med One. They're going to take care of you, okay?"

They moved again, turned into a partitioned space with a solid horseshoe of equipment. The gurney was locked down to a frame and the hover disengaged. Staff donned gloves and bodily raised Spock to remove the backboard. Someone in doctor's whites with a badge that read "Wrey, NEURO" moved in beside the bed. He pulled a padd stylus out of his pocket and used it to try and straighten the clawed fingers of Spock's left hand which were curled far over at the wrist and pinned awkwardly to his chest. The fingers sprang closed again when released.

The doctor noted something into a mic at his shoulder. Grange bent close to Spock, relieved his eyes were still open.

"What happened, Cadet?"

Grange wanted to reached out to shake Spock to get him to talk, balled his fists at his sides instead and leaned closer.

"Spock. That's an order. Tell me what happened."


	26. Incident, Part 2

Chapter 26 - Incident, Part 2

Spock studied the scanner rods overhead, the white ceiling and white piping crisscrossing it. The lighting surrounding him was oddly bright yet indirect. He had no time sense. He could have lost sixty seconds or sixty hours. His head pulsed in a way that leeched a foreboding acid down his throat and into his chest. Grange moved into view. He wore a hard look, but it seemed superficial over something more immediate.

"That's an order. Talk to me. What happened?"

Spock made his mouth move. "They were all cadets." He wanted to add that he'd tried not to hurt anybody, but the will to form those words was fleeting.

There were three other staff speaking low, maneuvering things. "Put a medication block on until the xeno gets here." "Get the bed heated." "Skip the respiration, let's assume he'll fight it."

"Look at me." Grange's voice cut through the cacophony of unfamiliar noise and movement and ethyl scents.

Grange came down to eye level, rolled closer on a stool. Spock studied his face, tried to find it comfortingly familiar. His senses were slippery and efforts to focus on his visual sense failed to help. He floated helpless in the flesh of himself. His mind could not be brought to bear, therefore nothing could, certainly not his body or his mental controls.

"I do not like this," Spock said. It came out pleading and he bit down on any more words. His senses continued to slip and skew and the stabbing headache made his eyes damp.

Beeping overhead drew Spock's attention that way. The machines reacted as if revealing his stress.

"What do we have this rodeo round?" A figure loomed into view wearing Starfleet blues with a high sheen. A round, average human face looked down at Spock. He raised a hand to change monitor settings, peered intently at them.

Someone replied, "Hybrid. Looks like human-Vulcan."

"Where's the metabolic model?"

"Nothing came up on his scan."

"What in tarnation?"

Spock flinched from the loud voice.

"The hell is wrong with some people. Get me a swab kit, stat." The figure in blue turned, took something from the person behind him and finished opening it. "Oh and tell those nerd kings down in computing that I need priority time for an emergency full bio model."

He bent over Spock holding white sticks in gloved hands that emitted scents of preserved meats and pickles. "Swallow and open up."

The inside of Spock's cheek was swabbed with a bulb like spun glass and things were handed off. A methodical hurrying recommenced.

A hand scanner warbled, passed over Spock's chest. It was tossed lightly and caught at the correct angle to view the readout. "Name's Leonard McCoy. I'll be your doctor for the duration. And your name?"

"You are a most annoying human."

"Hell of a name. But I'll put it down to the headache you are probably suffering rather than your parents hating you that much."

"His name is Spock," Grange said from Spock's right.

"You are in charge of keeping him talking, correct?" McCoy said. "You're doing a piss-poor job."

"Spock," Grange said.

Spock reluctantly turned his head. It made his senses swim to alter the angle of his vision. He was slipping more, becoming something unknown, something without controls.

"I don't like this. I cannot . . . "

Equipment moved, buzzed.

"I didn't realize you were a hybrid." Grange was looking up at something over Spock's head. He didn't look pleased by it.

Spock waded through meanings while movement and status noises flowed around him. He wanted to close his eyes and shut out everything. Grange repeated his words more forcefully. It clanged against Spock's pride.

Spock sleepily replied, "I don't understand. You met my mother."

"And I met your father. He came by for a tour the other day."

"You told him my class ranking."

"I did not. Admin must have. I would never do that."

Unlike his ordering Spock to answer, this statement rang with real offended emotion. The doctor was on the comm, haranguing central computing for his model.

"Forgive me, sir. I know better."

"It's okay."

Spock studied Grange's eyes, his rough skin, which fit him exceptionally well. He voiced his confusion. "You met my mother."

"I did. She was Vulcan, wasn't she?"

Spock squinted and regretted it. "I do not understand."

"You know." Grange rolled closer again. "She had a head scarf. I didn't see her features. But I sure thought she was Vulcan."

"She'd be flattered." The room swam. Spock was sinking inside himself to a past where his mother's beliefs belonged to a stranger. He had to exhale to talk. "She thinks it's a better way."

"Tell me more about your mother." A pause that Spock didn't have the energy to fill. "Spock? Cadet?"

Blackness welcomed Spock like a lover. He longed to close his eyes.

"Doctor," Grange said with real emotion.

Something stiff moved over Spock's left hand, tugged on his fingers before going away again.

"Get me a lazdrain kit. We can't risk real meds without the model and there is already more swelling on the scan than I ever want to see."

Equipment moved around with muttered communication.

"Spock, do you think you can hold still for me?" This was a voice from behind him. Before he could respond, fingers pressed into his face and his scalp, pressing his head firmly to the side.

"Just keep looking this way, at me, Spock," Grange said. "Just relax. Can you do that for us?"

The sense of expectant attention of the many people in the area returned, grew nerves of its own. Spock wondered how they had all become a team against him so rapidly.

"Two ccs of diflourinated cephalinion. We're going to have to take our chances. Doctor Wrey, monitor for rejection please. Someone get a blood shunt ready in case we need it."

"Hold very still," said the distracted voice at Spock's ear.

Spock felt something rough on the back of his head, moving his hair, then whirling and super chilled hardness pressing tight, almost pinching, clamping where it shouldn't be possible.

"Lieutenant, your job is very simple," McCoy said between clenched teeth.

"What's your favorite class, Spock?"

"We've discussed this."

"Can't tell you how pleased I am to hear that," McCoy said. The fingers pressed harder, the pinching grew spiking painful. It was a pleasant distraction from the throbbing ache burning white hot deep in Spock's skull. "You're being held together right now by your human proteins, son. Let's hope they keep coming through for us."

"Tell me your favorite anyway. That's an order," Grange said.

"Your orders do not sound sincere right now."

"Turns out it doesn't matter. They are orders, sincere or not."

"I see." Spock assembled words and pushed them out past the sandy muck of his senses. "I am still quite pleased with the Advanced Ship Design course."

Grange's attention was drawn to whatever was happening to Spock's head. "What's your favorite part of it? You like Captain Chanel?"

"She is a fascinating specimen of her rank."

"That's one way to put it."

"I would think you would get along, sir."

"Spock." Grange shook his head. "You're lucky you can't be held responsible for what you say right now."

"Feeling a little better?" This was the doctor's voice, loud in Spock's ear. The noise clanged against his headache.

Blackness wasn't drawing him in so powerfully. "Perhaps."

Something chimed.

"It's about damn time. Wrey. Hands. Here."

Someone else's painful fingertips joined McCoy's then McCoy's departed. Spock closed his eyes.

"Cadet! Eyes on me. Tell me about Kirk. How's he doing?"

"He cannot tell me much in his messages."

"Miss him?"

Spock lost ground and could not regain it. Above him a monitor trilled wildly.

"Wrong line of questioning," said a new voice at Spock's ear. "Something else."

"Sorry, Spock."

"I do not like this. I cannot. Control. Do. Anything." Spock shifted his hands. They moved but felt very far away.

"That's partly the stim," McCoy said. "Partly the injury. Try to relax. You're going to be okay."

There was the sound of plastic sheets shifting. Drugs being ordered from a computer. A hiss, a wash of warmth strolled through Spock's arm, through the other arm. Again, something stiff caught on the fingers of his left hand, ran from his palm to his fingers and went away.

Grange tapped the bed beside Spock's nose, startled him. "I need to get your parents here."

A monitor thrummed louder.

"No."

"No? You don't want your father and mother here?"

Spock swallowed. The pulsing ache in his head had eased slightly, but he was swimming through his senses with no ability to rein in his instinctive reactions. "I am failing. He cannot see this."

"I can't not contact them."

"No."

"If the boy doesn't want his father here, he has that choice. Let it be." This was McCoy's voice, close again.

"Thank you," Spock said.

A gloved hand touched Spock's shoulder, rested there. There was fussing at the back of Spock's head, a clicking of device covers. Murmured conversation and movement.

"See. I'm not as bad as all that. You can roll your head this way now."

Spock was no longer being held down and couldn't remember when he'd been released. He rocked his head tentatively onto a gel surface. Something was attached to the back of his head, but he couldn't feel it after it sank in and became soft.

The round faced human doctor was studying him. "The medication's almost worse than the headache." He sounded understanding. "I know you feel uneasy. Just try to flow with it for a bit. It's like a lazy river you're going to take little ride on for a time. It's keeping the damage to a minimum and god knows brains are all Vulcans have got."

The doctor looked up at the monitor, kept watching it. Spock wished he could see it. The beeps and hums fell into a regular pattern and the two nurses and the other doctor were no longer hurrying. Two of the nurses in white went out, one returned.

Grange asked him about his classes, wouldn't let up, no matter how repetitive Spock's answers.

"I hear my father's voice," Spock said rather than do the impossible and explain why literature was so difficult for him.

"Doctor?" Grange said in concern.

"What are you asking me for? Go check. I'll keep him occupied for you."

McCoy pulled the blanket down, pulled a piece of engineering tape off Spock's chest. Then a second one. "Looks like you went to a hell of a party, son."

"Not precisely."

"What happened?"

"I was stunned and taped to another cadet."

"Ah. That sort of thing. Buck naked, I assume, based on the tape. Ah, takes me back."

Spock felt his left brow go up. It didn't hurt as much to move his face. "Explain."

"Medical school's rough on you if you are slow, or have an accent that makes you pronounce latin incorrectly, or are just plain disliked. The school work is nothing in comparison."

"I see."

"Look on the bright side. Whoever did this to you is Leanea VII Tar Pits deep in trouble. Rule one is leave no marks on anything but pride. Or that was the rule back in my day."

"I am a first year. I do not know these rules."

"First year? Not a lot of Vulcans in Starfleet. They aren't succeeding in chasing you out, I hope."

"Seems like you'd be pleased if they were."

"The hell it does."

Spock looked up at the ceiling. Confusion made him queasy. "My mistake."

Grange returned to the now open right side of Spock's bed. "The Academy Super, Vice Admiral Justin, is here with your father. I suspect he contacted your dad when he found out what happened."

"Doing damage control already," McCoy said.

The other nurse returned. "Can we have visitors?"

"Son?"

Spock turned to the doctor. "I do not think I have a choice."

The doctor patted Spock's arm, this time sans glove. Spock felt a wash of raw compassion that contrasted with his demeanor.

"Show 'em in, Nurse."

Justin strode in and came beside the bed where the doctor had vacated. "How are you doing, son?"

Spock stared. This form of address was becoming less logical by the moment.

Sarek approached more slowly. Took in the monitors overhead before shuffling up to the right side of the bed.

"I'm improving, sir." Spock spoke as strongly as possible. Hoped he didn't sound as gasping to them as he did to himself.

Justin was visually tracing the spread of equipment around Spock's pillow that Spock couldn't see but could hear and feel when he shifted. Justin's face grew darkly concerned. He turned to McCoy. "How is he?"

"We'll know better in 24 hours. Swelling's under control but we can't assess damage yet."

"Cadet. Do you remember what happened?"

"Yes."

"Can you identify the perpetrators for me?"

Spock disliked staring straight up at them. "Not with sufficient certainty."

Sarek and the Admiral stared at each other. Sarek said, "The admiral was reasonably certain you would not say."

"Given the consequences, I must to be 100% certain." Spock turned to the doctor. "May I sit up a little?"

McCoy came to the side of the bed. "If you feel up to it. Just a few degrees."

The bed lifted. Spock ignored the nausea. The bed stopped at thirty-five degrees. McCoy pulled out a stylus and caught it in Spock's fingers. Spock looked down at his hand, at how it was curled in on itself. He stretched his hand out but could not do so fully, felt it trying to curl back.

"Nurse. The customized protinental ready yet?"

"Six minutes, doctor."

"You didn't have a model on file for him." This was directed at Sarek.

"He has never had care on earth."

"Now he has a model on file. So, next time there won't be a delay in treatment. Hopefully, it wasn't too costly."

Spock expected Sarek to go on the offensive in response to this attitude. But he remained silent and inward. Spock straightened the fingers of his left hand again, felt them curling again.

McCoy said, "It's improved a lot since the swelling's reduced. I think you're going to be just fine. And if not you have a few brain cells to spare at your age."

Justin was watching Spock's hand. "Remembering any better, son?"

"I remember that it was my fault I was dropped unceremoniously. I did not want to be dunked into the fountain."

"The fountain's an honor," Justin said. "But I understand your reservations on it."

"That is an unexpected honor," Sarek said.

"Tradition. After finishing the year top in a category, or winning an outside award. Keeps people from thinking too much of themselves. Reminds them they are at the mercy of others."

"Do you sanction this, Superintendent?"

He frowned painfully. "Ambassador, we are going to send these students to the far reaches of space where the external risks are off the charts. We can't have internal risks too. If we control the students too closely they will have no idea how to control themselves once they are out there, out of reach of oversight. If they aren't a team, they won't make it back even from an easy mission. We're constantly learning the hard way, just as our predecessors did a hundred years ago, just what kind of oversight to provide."

Sarek stood with hands knitted before him staring at the admiral.

Justin returned Sarek's gaze unblinking. "Accidental harm is a different category of transgression than intentional, but is still taken seriously. We expect care for one's actions, including taking into account incidental risks. We will deal with what happened."

Spock's thoughts were coming together better. Every minute felt like a fresh awakening.

Sarek said, "Our people certainly sanction hard training and hardening of abilities through exposure to difficulty, even for children, but not humiliation of this nature."

"I understand, Ambassador."

Spock said, "May I speak to my father alone?"

McCoy crossed his arms. "You'll have to drag me out with a butterfly net."

"We'll go. Lieutenant, with me." Grange and Justin departed along with the one remaining nurse.

"Father, I need your attention to a matter. I hope you will see your way to it." Spock wished his voice was stronger. The words still needed to be pushed out. And he'd spoken in Standard without meaning to.

"Depends upon what it is."

"My companion, P'Losiwst Jlowisam, she was targeted along with me. Her father is an Andorian business owner of some influence. He was most displeased to find we were keeping friendly company . . . let alone this."

Spock paused to arrange his thoughts. He must have paused longer than he realized. His father's hand came to rest on the bed beside his shoulder.

"Spock?"

"He will be most horrified when he learns what happened. I fear he will remove her from the Academy."

That was all Spock could manage. He watched Sarek take this information in.

"What do you wish from me?"

"That you intervene with him before he makes such a decision or takes an action that his pride will not allow him to revoke." Spock couldn't detect any reaction in Sarek. "Please. Father."

Sarek remained stoic. "When you are stable, and your mother arrives. I will consider it."

The monitor gave away Spock's stress at this reply. Spock tipped his head away, floundered for the shreds of his control.

"It's the treatment," McCoy said from where he leaned on the end cap of the horseshoe of equipment.

Sarek nodded. He spoke in Vulcan. "Rest your efforts, Spock."

Admiral Justin returned. He looked at Spock as he spoke. "I sent Lt. Grange back to the Academy. Which is where I should be as well, sorting this out. You'll let me know if anything significant changes, Doctor?"

"Aye, aye, Admiral."

Justin hesitated departing. "Thank you, Doctor. I think." He bowed. "Ambassador. Please contact my office when it's convenient. Or sooner if you need anything from us."

* * *

Grange walked out to the lifts past the hospital floor's large waiting area. A contingent of eleven third year cadets rose up from the couches and chairs.

"Sir."

Grange rubbed the grit clear of his left eye. The darkened windows showed even darker trees tossing in a silent wind. He memorized who was present.

"Yes?"

A few stood straighter. "How is Cadet Spock, sir?"

"A little better now than when he arrived."

Gazes dropped or shifted away. No one else spoke.

The elevator doors opened. A few eyes lifted with interest in that direction. Grange turned. Lady Amanda exited flanked by two tall Vulcans, one young, one middle aged. She pulled her head scarf down, glanced at the younger of the two accompanying her. Without a word, he strode off ahead.

Amanda appeared to compose her expression. She folded her hands before her, became a picture of control, the kind that matched Grange's mistaken expectations of her race the last time they'd met.

She looked his way. He nodded and stepped over. It wasn't his place to give her official news, but he was prepared to accept any blame she needed to dole out.

"Lieutenant." She was the picture of polite calm, as if perhaps he was the one in need of support. This made him feel considerably worse.

The young Vulcan returned accompanied by Sarek. They stopped just inside the waiting area.

"Husband." Amanda swept across to him. She stopped before Sarek and composed herself again, said something in Vulcan, received a curt reply in Vulcan. Sarek held up his index and middle fingers and led her away by the fingers.

They were swallowed up by the busy movement in the long corridor. Grange glanced at the cadets, some biting lips, staring off into space, two were examining their boots. He needed them back at the Academy for official debriefing, but decided to let them stew and walked away


	27. Incident, Part 3

Chapter 27 - Incident, Part 3

"You sure about this joining Starfleet idea?" Dr. McCoy stood with one foot up on the bed's lower brace, his arms crookedly crossed.

"Yes."

"You ever even been on a Starfleet vessel?"

Spock narrowed his eyes, then returned to expressionless, which hurt his head less. "You are in Starfleet."

"That's why I'm asking."

"Your regrets are not mine," Spock said.

"They can be."

"I wish to make my home there." The monitor's many tones shifted as his emotions did. "I do not like that device."

McCoy reached up and muted the monitor above Spock's head. The many other noises seemed to grow louder to fill in.

Spock looked over McCoy's shiny tunic. "Starfleet allows me to learn a great deal, to explore and observe phenomenon I could not otherwise."

McCoy wrinkled his nose. "Yeah?"

Spock wondered how long his father would be gone. He'd hoped to use this time to find a discipline that would combat the slipperiness of his controls. "Why did you join?"

"I needed to run away from earth. Fast."

"You are still on earth."

"I wanted to get away, as far away as possible. But then I found I wanted to stall actually putting myself in a dented tin can a thousand light years from naturally breathable air. And I'm still stalling. Which they won't let me do indefinitely. But as long as clumsy oafs like you with a bright and promising future keep getting hurt, they'll see fit to keep putting me to use planetside."

"You wish to leave earth, but you do not wish to be on a ship. That is not logical."

The corner of McCoy's mouth twitched. "I'm glad you can spot that. Don't think I haven't." He patted the insignia on his shirt. "But I'm stuck for the duration. You don't know what you're getting into."

"Nothing else would please me as much as Starfleet."

"Now you're not being logical."

The curtain parted and Sarek and Amanda stepped inside.

"Mother." Spock spoke as normally as he could.

Amanda smiled painfully and lowered herself onto the stool on Spock's right. She reached out a hand toward his arm.

"My wife," Sarek said.

Amanda sat straight, clasped her hands in her lap.

"You know," McCoy said. "I think we could use just one visitor at a time in here for a bit."

He and Sarek stared at each other.

Amanda spoke in her most gentle voice. "Doctor, it is quite all right."

McCoy rocked up on his toes, twisted his mouth to the side. "If you insist, Ma'am."

She turned her aching gaze on Spock. "I am unspeakably pleased you are awake, Spock."

McCoy came close on Spock's other side, shifted the cords around him and dressed them neater, tucked the extra slack under his mattress pad. "He was only out as long as the stun was in effect. Which is a very good sign."

Amanda traced with her eyes the cables and tubes around Spock's head and it required many seconds for her face to soften again.

McCoy said, "We've got the swelling well in hand. Just have to keep it down until it stays down on its own."

Spock straightened his left hand and watched it retract. It seemed to retract only slightly more than normal. McCoy watched this, studied his face. Spock looked away.

"Couple more hours I think we'll try for a bit of sleep," McCoy said. "Healing happens best in sleep."

"Can a Vulcan healer assist?" Sarek asked.

"I know they can't do much with a head injury. But I can see if we've got one on call."

"We have one to provide," Sarek said, unnecessarily unyielding.

McCoy pulled back. "If you insist."

"I do."

Spock closed his eyes, wished them all away.

The doctor rapped Spock's left shoulder. He again felt the strange internal compassion of McCoy's that contrasted with his exterior. "You aren't sleeping yet, my boy."

Spock rode the wave of stabbing sensation behind his eyes from focussing his eyes. "May I have my assigned padd?"

"For what, astrophysical navigational plotting or some such? No. I don't want you straining your gray matter. You need to avoid sleep, but you do need to rest." McCoy sat on a stool and rolled back, adjusted a panel to show a 3D model of energy seething along pathways. Spock wondered if it was his thought patterns.

"You can read a book if you want. If it's something easy."

"I am assigned the Martian Chronicles by my tutor." Spock turned to his father. "I will miss my session with Shutan."

"It will be seen to," Sarek said. "You were, I am quite certain, instructed already to put such concerns aside. Do try and do as you are told."

Spock rested his head back onto the gel pad. Felt the device screwed to his skull sink in and soften.

"May I meditate?"

McCoy rolled in close, waved a scanner over him, read it for a long time. "Yes."

With eyes open, Spock meditated lightly, tried to let the minutes slip away without impacting them or anything in his life.

* * *

Zienn arrived with Overlander, who waved with a painful smile from outside the curtain and moved on when hurrying staff slowed to go around her. Zienn's gaze took in every computer panel, every millimeter of cord and tube, before coming to rest on Spock. Only then did he step closer.

"Perhaps a much needed break, my wife," Sarek said. "Spock will be asleep and it is a logical opportunity for you to rest."

Amanda stood up, put a hand down on the bed beside Spock's arm and stepped away. Sarek escorted her out. Zienn slid down into her place and put a hand on Spock's forehead and let it rest there.

Spock gratefully closed his eyes, but felt no telepathic connection. He badly wanted to sink into the heavy gravity of sleep that had weighted him down for so many tedious hours. Zienn held him back from sleep, held him static and relaxed.

"What's this?" Dr. McCoy had returned, replacing the neurologist. He looked Zienn up and down from across the bed. "I didn't realize Vulcan had hermits."

Zienn tilted his head, glanced down at himself. He raised a brow which Spock knew was for effect. "I did not realize humans still engaged in ritual sorcery."

McCoy put his hands on his hips. "Well, at least the hermit speaks a civil language. Small miracles." He had a scanner in his hand. He used it on Spock, looked at it.

"Do you worship your machines?" Zienn said.

"By no means do I worship these bloody things."

Zienn took in the arc of equipment. "Your extensive altar here belies you."

"Now listen here, you scruffy elf. Sometimes a machine is the best tool." He pointed at his chest. "I do what's best for my patients. Not what I prefer, personally. Got it?" He gestured at Spock. "Just because you can reach into his head and change how he's thinking, change his pulse and respiration and, and, blood pressure. That's not medicine. Magically changing someone's thoughts and body with your hands, that's sorcery, or voodoo more like it. Thank you very much."

There was a pause.

"Exalted High Priest?" Spock said quietly.

Zienn looked down at him.

"Is that what he is," McCoy muttered.

Spock silently wished for him to put the argument aside. Zienn looked up at McCoy, said nothing.

McCoy bounced on his toes. "Well. Then. Let's get you ready for a nap, all right?" He arranged things around the head of the bed. "Roll on your side a bit for me."

Spock turned part way toward Zienn and flinched from the disconcertingly numb tugging on the back of his skull bone.

"All right, there," McCoy said. "Just a second. . ."

"You have put a machine in his brain."

"Just a drain and stim to keep the pressure down mechanically. He's not exactly well covered for contraindications in the master drug catalog. Okay, you can roll back."

"I do not like that thing," Spock said.

"I'd be more worried if you did like it." McCoy leaned heavily on the bed. "Need anything?"

"No. Thank you."

"Someone's mother raised 'em right." McCoy returned to his stool and rolled back. "Go on then, Mr. Mumbo Jumbo. Keep him in slow wave sleep as much as you can, as long as you can."

Zienn considered McCoy for a time before steepling his fingers. Spock gratefully closed his eyes, let his neck go lax, waited there at the gateway to sleep. The space around him flowed with the sounds of living machines. Fingers invaded that space, pressed against Spock's left temple. A rigorous mind laid itself over his own, but remained well on the periphery. He was urged to fall inward.

Spock had fought too long, fought sleep, his classmates, his hopeless controls.

"Sleep, Spock," a voice said in Vulcan. "Everything is cared for, including you. Sleep."

A well formed in Spock's mind, dropped away beneath him, drew him down, down into insentience. He gave up and slid into it, and blackness.

* * *

Kirk woke to a green-hazed morning sky domed over gray ground and curled his aching body to sit up. He slithered out of his sack and shook his bruised limbs, forcing the aches into the background of his mind. He stretched again so he wouldn't stumble and walked to the perimeter to check in with the scouts. Everything was quiet, had been for hours.

He stepped into the shadow of a spire of rock and retrieved his padd from his belt. There were still no messages from Spock. Neither comm lag nor Spock's courses could explain this length of a delay. Spock's last message stated he was visiting the Antaras Lab on the moon, had been invited to a second demo hosted late to allow for travel time, that he would be accompanied by the classmate Kirk had met. That was a day ago. It wasn't that long, but it was a hard break in pattern, and those set the hairs on Kirk's neck on end.

The comm link engaged, messages scrolled in, status updates, feed items. In the middle of the new list was a message tagged from Amanda. Kirk stared at it, at the unusual orange outline on the message.

"Sir, scout bravo is back."

Kirk raised his head, found himself surprised by the landscape he was in, the trampled plants, the spires of rock, the rapidly brightening sky. He jammed the padd into its pouch and approached the returning crew. He focused hard on their words. Signs of encampment in the last month, but nothing newer. Signs of heavy equipment moving around. Signs of bots. The words carried a halo that burned into Kirk's mind, threatening to be there forever. He looked away, put the information into place with normal significance. It still glowed deep in him. He feared he'd forever associate this moment with something personally significant.

"Should we move, sir?"

Kirk turned back to scout bravo. "Did you check our blocking?"

"We didn't risking scanning, sir." A nervous bite of dark lips. "You ordered a visual check, sir." Everything about Uirik was pink and red, as though his blood was too close to the surface of his skin.

Kirk nodded. "I'd prefer to stay if we're hidden. Moving is harder to hide. Ideas?"

"We can sacrifice a drone. Have it run a wide scanning course, transmitting encrypted in all directions. See if we show up."

"How many drones do we have?"

"Four and a half."

Kirk had learned this meant engineering could likely cobble together a fifth, but they would bitch about it.

"Have engineering strip one of everything it doesn't need to have on it. Make its course imply we're elsewhere, just to play with them. Maybe we can make THEM move."

Uirik's face relaxed. "Right, sir."

"If we can't see ourselves, we'll stay put."

Kirk continued walking around camp as the day warmed. With a slow methodical plodding, he checked everything. Began checking ER gear, which he found wasn't as ill treated as he'd feared.

"Want me to do that, sir?" a crewmember asked.

Kirk was restowing med kits a second time in a way that made the pictorial labels easier to see. He was remembering Spock straddling Hully with a trache punch that he'd grabbed in a hurry without knowledge of sickbay's stores. He was thinking a lot about Spock in various moments of high stress. He'd left his padd firmly latched to his belt and remembered random things.

Kirk took too long replying. "Go ahead, crewmember. Thanks."

A long lingering look. He needed to snap out of it.

When Uirik asked to see him about the drone, Kirk was inexpressibly relieved. He helped with the programming, watched the data blast, watched the power drop from the crazed route, the high powered broadcast data. They might as well have set off a set of fireworks. But the route had given the enemy a three thousand square kilometer area to choose from. He wished to the depths of him that he better understood how this enemy thought.

The haze of the day slid by. The high stress laziness of the others felt alien. Kirk returned to the center of their now confirmed invisible camp after checking in with engineering about routine maintenance.

"No one sleeps rough tonight. Everyone in the scuttles. And someone qualified at pilot at all times."

Eyes came around, came up, nods and mutters of ascent. Gazes remained on Kirk as if expecting more.

Kirk retreated to the transport scuttle. As if guessing his order but more likely just taking advantage of the comfortable chair, Hummer sat at pilot, displays on low active.

Kirk slid into the copilot's seat and pulled out his padd with normal motions. There was a second message from Amanda. Kirk deliberated a full minute which to read first. He pulled up the newer one. Amanda, ever the wife of a diplomat, had written this message as if the first had not been received. Kirk felt warm and heartsick at the care taken in the words.

"In an incident that Spock insists was partly his own fault, he suffered a head injury at the hands of senior class members at Starfleet Academy and is currently in ICU at Med One. They have just returned from running a deeper scan and found less damage than feared. So we are quite relieved. Spock has a rather skilled but acerbic xeno specialist surgeon by the name of McCoy looking after him very nearly full time. He credit's Spock's human aspects for his resiliency with an injury that would be harrowing for a fully bred Vulcan. The intracranial bleeding was limited and the swelling brought under control as rapidly as possible given the difficulty Spock's hybridity poses with treatment. They will keep him medicated and under observation for several more days, using the risk profile of a pure Vulcan, just in case.

"The Academy Superintendent came by again this afternoon after hearing the surgeon wanted to keep Spock in ICU. Spock still refuses to name anyone involved on the grounds that he is not one hundred precent positive of the identification. I don't know whether you are willing to argue he should speak of this. So I'll state the current situation and leave it at that.

"At the moment Spock is in medicated sleep with Zienn assisting him in remaining in the deepest part of healing sleep. They conduct this three times a day, alternating with peripheral stimulation. Even a skilled Healer cannot help a Vulcan heal a significant head wound as the necessary deep meld hobbles the Healer in the same manner as it does the patient. Some may still attempt it, but there is risk to it and it's been deemed not worth pursuing in Spock's case.

"It's quiet right now. Zienn keeps his eyes closed rather than risk the glare of McCoy. When Spock is awake, they are rather amusingly at each other. Which, I think, keeps Spock well distracted from his situation and the requirement to leave off his studies for the duration of his stay. He's only allowed his books for his earth literature tutor and his Ethics through Galactic Literature class, to, as you can imagine, his unbridled dismay. But his dismay is reassuring to me and I find it as beautiful as he is right now in repose."

Kirk stared beyond the padd screen. He considered reading the first message, which would likely contain more uncertainty and more emotional strain for himself.

"Bad news, sir?" Hummer kept his gaze locked on the heads-up display.

Kirk shut the padd's lid. "It's nothing I can do anything about."

A gap of a minute. "That just makes it much harder."

Kirk frowned, nodded.

"You should tell the team you've got a spoiler, sir."

"I've never heard that term."

"Just means you've got something spoiling the fun. Issues at home that you can't take care of from here. They'll understand. Not like everyone doesn't, at least part of the time."

"Right. Rather than skulking about and reorganizing everything for the hell of it."

"It's natural to try and do what you can even if it doesn't help the problem back home."

Kirk didn't know what race Hummer was. His hair started far back on his head and his scalp was faceted leading into his hair like a geodesic dome. There seemed to be a much higher percentage of non-earth extraction on these missions than on starship assignments.

"In a ship command I'd never let on to anything personal," Kirk said. "I appreciate you pointing out I should."

"They'll think it's them and get antsy. Otherwise."

"Crew on a ship don't think that way. They have a station to maintain. Ship crew know right away because of the computer and sensors if they're maintaining their station well or not. The commander is just an irritant in an otherwise orderly shift. I guess out here we change everything every few days and we won't know until shit goes wrong if something wasn't right."

Hummer looked over at Kirk. His gray irises were oddly deep and large and flat behind the lens. "Interesting, sir. I never wanted to be on a ship. Sounds boring as hell."

"It's not when you're in command of it."

Hummer's brows slid outward rather than angle upward. "Right."

Kirk flipped open the padd and pulled up the first message from Amanda.

"James, I regret to give you difficult news in what I know is an already difficult situation for you, but I cannot have you remain uninformed. Early this morning, Spock was injured in a hazing incident at Starfleet Academy. He was brought to Med One and is being treated for a head injury, something far more significant for a Vulcan than a human, I'm afraid. They assure me that because he was not unconscious long that the long-term damage should be minimal, but they won't know for certain for a few more hours.

"He is awake and talking right now and making things as difficult as possible for the xeno specialist in charge of his care. He doesn't want me to worry you, so I do not have a message from him directly. But I have decided that you have every right to know what's happened."

Kirk considered his reply. He wondered what the hazing incident entailed. He didn't see Spock going down easy, or being caught unaware. Perhaps the difficulty of getting an advantage over him was how he'd been injured. Kirk wanted to tell Amanda to hug Spock for him, but knew she would not and that made him burn inside in ways he couldn't afford. He replied, "Thank you. Message Received."

"If I may, sir?"

"Yes?"

"Why are you here? Rather than in a ship command."

Kirk looked at the granite of Hummer's irises. "Maybe I was bored."

Hummer laughed.

Kirk wished Hummer was a lieutenant rather than crew. He could use a lieutenant this comfortable. Kirk pulled up the maps and feed point overlays. Tried to figure out what the enemy was thinking.


	28. Incident, Part 4

Chapter 28 - Incident, Part 4

Sten initiated the automated docking request sequence and pulled his hands back from the console. Sarek stood behind him, considering the vessel on the screen. It was a simple disk with a single engine pod. Not built to be fast, but efficient of fuel and interior space.

"Hold station at this distance," Sarek said.

They waited. Sarek had made a request for communication to Y'Rishick Jlowisam through the embassy, not personally. He had calculated that would be more likely to be accepted. The resulting back and forth of where and when to rendezvous would normally have frustrated him for the posturing it implied. He'd left Sgroud entirely in charge of it. All the concessions had been on the embassy's side, but the contact request had been accepted.

Sarek stepped through the airlock alone. He had only brought Sten along to avoid anyone younger and stronger arguing with him over that.

The ship's corridors were low. Sarek dipped his head at each bulkhead strut. It reminded him of an old earth story of a king who made the doorway to the throne room exceptionally short to ensure that everyone bowed low to him upon entering.

Two Andorians, apparently unarmed, escorted Sarek to a cabin door leading to the center of the craft. They spoke their native tongue to the comm unit and after another posturing delay of great length, ushered him inside and remained on either side of him.

Y'Rishick Jlowisam was a small Andorian with the usual silver hair and pearl eyes of his race. His ordinary appearance was offset by well cut and expensive clothing, a long layered tunic that nearly classified as a robe.

"The Ambassador himself." Y'Rishick spoke with clear derision.

Sarek bowed. "May we speak alone?"

Y'Rishick glared for a time. He switched to Andorii and the escorting Andorians as well as two others at consoles in the cabin looked to each other, then departed with many glances back.

"Your business, Vulcan?" Y'Rishick said when the door had sealed out the others.

"Are you aware of what transpired at Starfleet Academy fifty one earth hours ago? Involving your daughter and my son."

A long pause. Y'Rishick reached out to shift a display on a tilted virtual screen beside him. "Yes. And that is why you are here?"

"Yes. I-"

"What purpose could interfering in my business possibly serve with regard to something involving my daughter? Do you know how it looks to have you here?"

This mission had nothing to do with himself, and Sarek found an easy composure. Which did bother him, in that it implied he may be at other times taking things personally.

"I apologize if I have negatively impacted your business with my visit. That was not my intent."

Y'Rishick's small face wrinkled around his eyes and brows. "Is this a trick?"

"I am here to provide whatever you need to not pull your daughter from Starfleet Academy over this incident."

Y'Rishick's antenna arched back, straightened. "My P'Losiwst insists there is nothing between her and your son, so therefore this is not your concern. Or have I been lied to?"

"If by that you mean some kind of relationship related to mating, you are correct. There isn't one."

Y'Rishick stared. It was hard at this distance to determine where he was focusing. "Why are you here then, Vulcan? Where is the precious logic in this action?"

"I have my reasons."

"Your reasons are the only thing I'm interested in. Share that or depart."

Sarek bowed again. He tried to make his voice level, but it came out quieter. "My son requested it of me."

Pearlescent eyes went wider. "You. Always do as he says?"

"No. This is possibly the first time."

Y'Rishick's shoulders shifted back, his tunics were too stiff to move with them. "Go on. That, so far, is a non-explanation, albeit an interesting one."

"My son was critically injured during the incident and is under professional care. He made this request of me."

Andorian antenna aimed forward. "And you are here instead of there?"

"Spock was agitated by the issue and that was limiting his healing. I could not get you to accept a less formal mode of communication closer to earth."

Y'Rishick scratched his powder blue cheek. "Perhaps if your assistant had explained-" He stepped aside, turned, looked down at a display in stand-by mode. He cocked his head. "Never mind, Vulcan."

He tossed both hands and they fluttered and settled again at his sides. "My daughter's place at the Academy is under no threat from me. She has been led to believe it is because I know if she is defying me that makes her work harder." He slumped within his clothing. "I do not know what got into her, but I did what I always do and resisted what seemed like yet another dilettante game, but she never gave it up. I still play my role within it."

"I see."

Y'Rishick shook his head. "I do not know where this long-term passion came from. There is no precedent for it." He lifted his arm to gesture at the screens. "She can have this business. It is by no means an empire, but she can have it. Why is that not enough challenge?"

"If I may. I think you are looking for logic in youth, where it is seldom found."

Y'Rishick waved a blue hand with pearly nails. "Yes. Children do things to just to deny us. They intentionally see the galaxy from another angle we cannot perceive a coherent whole from."

"Indeed." Sarek settled into his pose of clasped hands, relaxed shoulders. "And you can prepare the path for them all you want, they act as if the path is not there."

"Or worse. They act insulted. They have no idea the energy expended on their behalf."

"Too much tradition or too little," Sarek said. "I do sometimes wonder which."

"I've been thinking lately too much." Y'Rishick straightened in surprise. Glared. "I do not wish to come to a meeting of minds with you like this, Vulcan. And I'm sure you do not either."

Sarek bowed. "I am a diplomat. It is my role to obtain a meeting of minds, or at least a successful conveyance of understandings and ideas."

"Oh." He waved a hand again. "I would no sooner pull my daughter from that Academy then I would marry her off to one of my business rivals. And, really, this incident is nothing compared to what her old cohort would do each other. The children of my partners. The children of our worlds' leaders. The things they would do to her."

He was staring off elsewhere. "And she would still call them friends."

Sarek held still. "I see."

Y'Rishick's eyes lost the little focus they seemed to have. "I taught my daughter to look for the smartest around her, to provide what they cannot for themselves, to make their success her own. She is doing that, although I sense she does not remember that was my lesson. Which is just as well. She owns her actions more believing she invented the idea." He faced Sarek full on. "She has made your son, whom she insists is the most intelligent in the class, a regular partner. She is doing what I would wish her to do, but I pretend she is not. I misinterpret. I complain. It makes her stronger. Even given the uncomfortable details of what happened, as long as she does not call these attackers 'friends,' I am unperturbed by what happened."

He stood up straighter, filling in his stiff clothes. "Enemies as enemies. Friends as friends. I am sanguine about that, Vulcan. And you? I assume you are not interfering. Else you should certainly not be here."

Sarek shifted his clasped hands. "My son chose this. He is of two worlds. I have learned over time that it is illogical to force him into one."

"Lucky. My daughter is of no world. The product of too much money used too effectively to buy freedom to be wherever her whimsy put her."

Silence fell and the two of them stared at the deck between them.

"Well, Vulcan," Y'Rishick said. "If it's all the same to you, perhaps we can pretend to part with enmity?"

Sarek bowed. "I have completed my mission. And if apparent dislike assists you with potential repercussions . . ."

Y'Rishick's eyes narrowed. "I have not considered this, honestly. If we suddenly appeared friendly, my business rivals might panic and do something highly and amusingly unwise, like attempt to copy me."

Sarek raised his palms outward. "If I may. I find that uncomfortable similarities create the most enmity between cultures."

"Yes. Well." Y'Rishick slouched his body again, left his clothes behind. "Will you assure me, with all the force of you adherence to the truth, your son has no interest in my daughter?"

"I will firmly assure you of that."

"My P'Losiwst insists your son has an unwavering boyfriend. One she describes to me in terms that would worry me in other circumstances, since I would not see her with a human either, although that would be slightly preferable."

"My son does have this."

"Well. Excellent." Y'Rishick stood with his hands at his sides and stared. "Vulcan, please leave. Relieve me of the parental guilt of having forced you here by acting as I have been taught to in negotiations with the enemy."

Sarek bowed, stepped back. "If you ever have need of communication . . ."

"If you have need of cultural translation . . ."

"I likely will take you up on that. It does come up regularly with your people."

Y'Rishick bowed awkwardly, and Sarek stepped back again which made the door slide open.

* * *

"James wishes to know when you are well enough to message him." Amanda lowered the dainty padd she held.

"I did not wish to concern him, Mother. He has duties from which a distraction is unwise."

The two of them were alone at the moment. McCoy was down the hall, napping. Sarek was at the embassy. Spock did not wish his father to make so much of his injury that he canceled embassy business. Sarek had relented for a few hours after assurances from McCoy.

"James has a right to know what happened," Amanda said.

Spock looked down at his hands. His left hand was normal now. He swallowed hard.

"Were you intending to never tell him?"

"I have failed somehow," Spock said.

"Why do you say that, Spock?"

Beyond the curtain footsteps approached and receded, equipment rolled by, rapid speech rose and fell, orders were given in urgent voices. The sound was irregular, yet never ceasing, like a river.

"In Starfleet one has to belong. It is a team organization, knit together by emotion."

Her hand came to rest on the blanket-covered part of his arm. "It is too early to decide if you have failed to join the Starfleet Academy team, Spock. On the other hand, Team Spock is concerned about you, right now, and rightly so."

Spock looked away. "That is rather twee, mother."

She put the padd into the crook of his arm. "James is very nearly family, Spock. You have responsibilities in light of that."

Spock took up the padd. He could be reporting that he'd failed a class for the weight of resistance to this action. "What have you told him?"

"Very little. Only the barest outline of what happened."

Spock tapped out: "James. I did not wish to disturb you, but my mother insists. I am doing well. They insist upon keeping me under high scrutiny another two days out of an excess of caution. My primary difficulty at this time is not my injury, it is not being allowed my studies. I do not wish to burden you with the details of what happened. I perhaps failed to sufficiently take your advice into account regarding my behavior and fitting in. I intend to understand the cause, if possible, and rectify it. Please keep safe. Spock."

Spock handed the padd back, knitted his fingers to meditate. He could practice some of his new techniques now that the slipperiness has faded.

The scent of dinner wafted through the hospital corridor.

McCoy said, "Chow time, my boy."

"Your turns of phrase are not logical."

The bed tilted up. A tray slid over closer.

"Tough noogies."

Amanda's lips curled. She bent farther than necessary over her bead work.

McCoy lifted the tray lid with a flourish, sniffed. "Vulcanoid-normal nutritionally complete synthesized vege cubes. Again. You want something more interesting?"

"I am still lacking in appetite. It is no matter."

"I'd be lacking in appetite too, if they brought me this."

"I will eat it."

"Your choice."

A figure parted the heavy silver curtain. "Is there room for a visitor?" It was Overlander.

Amanda sat up and brightened in welcome. Overlander considered her at length. "You could use a rest, Spock's Mother. How about I stay with Spock until I need to fetch Zienn from the meditation room on the top floor."

Amanda began to protest.

"Mother."

Amanda's eyes had grown red rimmed. She put a hand on the bed beside Spock. "You will be all right?"

"Yes, quite. I grow concerned for you."

She stood, moved her hand to his blanketed arm. "That we don't want. All right then. I'll return later with your father."

Overlander hopped onto the vacated chair, bent her much taller body over to get more personal. "You're looking pretty good today."

"I am considerably improved. I hope to be released ahead of schedule."

"Another ungrateful customer," McCoy muttered.

"What ship are you with, doc?" Overlander asked.

"I'm not. Thank you very much."

"You're in a deployment uniform."

"Don't remind me."

Overlander laughed through her nose. She turned to Spock. "You talk to Kirk?"

"My mother forced me to message him."

She grew quiet. "Believe me, I know what's it's like to lay here and try and make things different by acting like everything is normal."

"It is not that. I cannot bear to be a distraction to him."

McCoy looked Overlander over with professional grade consideration, turned back to entering orders.

"I'd hope he can manage. He knows his limits," Overlander said.

"James's reply was succinct, which justifies my concern."

"Spock." Her face took on the same softness Amanda's did. "Trust James. Okay? My only advice for you."

Spock looked away.

Overlander softly said, "You're really worried about him."

Spock held his gaze away. He noticed McCoy using the hand scanner, but aimed over him.

"Is that considered gentlemenly where you come from, Doctor?" Spock said.

McCoy closed his hand around the Feinberger and looked down at Spock. "Most certainly not." He flushed. "Lot of metalworks on you, Commander."

"Oh. Yeah."

"Not my area, I confess. Working out for you?"

"I don't have any choice but to make them work."

McCoy twisted his mouth. "Join the club of humanity. Making it work out."

McCoy tested Spock's reflexes and visual tracking by hand, as he did four times a day. He put the blanket back down over Spock's feet, tucked it in. Overlander watched all this with an amused gleam.

"I like you, doc. You want a ship?"

"You giving one away?"

"Sort of."

"No. Leave me alone."

Overlander laughed gleefully. "Imagine back when it was drafted bodies. Half the crew would be just like this."

"I'd take that. At least y'all wouldn't be so damn insufferable." McCoy pulled a monitor screen away from the wall, made adjustments on it. "You look like you're recovering, son, but your Vulcanness is lurking there in the shadows. And I don't trust it." He squinted at the screen. "Machines I don't ken. Hybrids, I do."

Overlander raised her chin. McCoy pushed the monitor away, crossed his arms.

"Do you?" Overlander asked with thoughtful slowness.

"Well, I certainly get called down for every single one unfortunate enough to come through here."

"Hm." She continued thoughtfully. "You take private patients?"

"Why d'you ask?" He seemed to think again. Glanced at Spock. "Right." He huffed. "I suppose I could borrow an office from a friend."

"I think I'd appreciate a consult, Doc."

"I don't do machines. Remember."

"I know."

Spock stared at the ceiling.

"We're embarrassing him," Overlander said.

"There is no logical reason for your roundabout method of communication."

"You sure?" Overlander asked.

Spock turned to McCoy. "She is hoping to have a child with High Priest Zienn."

McCoy became statue still. "You're shitting me."

Overlander was grinning. "Now I'm glad you saved me from breaking him into the idea."

Mccoy straightened, flushed. "None of my business really."

"I'm trying to make it your business, though."

"I mean your reasons are none of my business, lady."

"Commander. Or sir. You've skipped your collar pips on that short sleeve number but if you just signed up with your professional credentials in Med they'd have made you lieutenant commander, and I have seniority on you."

McCoy sighed and held up his hands, palms out. "I give. Let's call it even. I'll let you know when I find an office I can use. I certainly don't have one of those AI secretaries for you to call. Dratted things."

Overlander looked to Spock. "I don't see how they don't get along better."

"They started out, as humans say, on the wrong foot." Spock waited a beat. "Then they became territorial over me."

McCoy snorted. "I'll admit. He's been helpful in speeding up your recovery."

"I notice you're admitting that when he is not here," Overlander said.

McCoy bounced on his toes. "Of course."

Sarek returned and Overlander let herself out with a wink at McCoy, said she'd be back with Zienn. Sarek came beside the bed, hands clasped.

"Father."

"Anything you require?" He cut Spock off as he opened his mouth. "Other than your other studies."

Spock closed his mouth. "No." Spock lowered his gaze. "I will continue to slip in the class rankings, Father."

"I will adjust my expectations. If you can regain your previous spot at the half term, that will be acceptable."

"That is achievable. I hope."

They fell silent. Zienn appeared at the heavy curtain, came inside with his usual silent movements and joined Sarek.

Sleep was not a welcome idea for Spock. "I feel quite alert. I feel ready to depart."

Sarek looked over the monitors above the head of the bed. "Doctor McCoy is leaving no chance for error. I believe."

"The stim is still active, but less so." McCoy drummed his fingers on the bed rail. "If he were full Vulcan there'd be no question of continuing treatment and monitoring. We could release him tomorrow with a biomonitor and rely on emergency response if he gets into trouble."

"Otherwise . . . the day after?"

"I'll feel a lot better about having him away from immediate care in another forty hours. Once the mind fails on a Vulcan there's not much time. I've read a few cases where there is only three minutes of documented loss of pulse and the patient never regains lucidity. Those cases make me paranoid levels of careful."

"Spock knows to Remain in this realm," Zienn said. "Even in distress."

"Remain in this realm, eh? Are we back into the Mumbo Jumbo?"

"Yes."

"Yeah, but three minutes?" McCoy said. "That's not even dead, really."

Zienn remained calm and easy as he spoke. "Time becomes difficult to perceive when one can suddenly slip across to the other realm and is not familiar with those circumstances. It is one of the reasons it is not our way to allow one to go alone."

McCoy leaned back, slowly crossed his arms. "You telling me . . . Vulcans don't die alone? Because I don't think I can believe that."

"They don't if it can be helped."

McCoy raised a brow, made a face. "I guess since I've never lost a Vulcan patient I haven't had a chance to learn this the hard way."

"In that case, Doctor," Sarek said. "We will abide by your recommended timeline."


	29. Incident, Part 5

Chapter 29 - Incident, Part 5

Vice Admiral Justin watched the last few cadets filing into his office shuffle into spots around the perimeter. All but two stood at parade rest, heads down. The two who didn't stood with hands at their sides, eye's eagerly forward. He'd instructed everyone who considered themselves involved in the incident to report to his office. A broad call like that often meant that extras reported, and they were always a certain kind of cadet.

Justin waited more than a minute before standing up and stepping slowly around the desk.

"I don't know if I've ever had this many cadets in here at a time." He looked at Sowser, a tall, very dark skinned human woman with her long hair pulled back into a bun from which emerged three shiny curls. She stood weighted forward on her toes, head up. He turned to Ovid, a square faced pale human male with dirt color hair and a large birthmark on his neck who projected a similar desire for movement. Both of them were colony born, high achievers from poor circumstances. Neither of them did he suspect took part in the incident in question.

"I assume the lot of you know why you are here. A hazing episode got out of hand and one of your fellow cadets spent four and a half days in an ICU." Gazes shifted but remained on the floor or directly on him. "I understand injury was not the intent of your actions. But the conditions that led to that injury were entirely of your making, therefore the outcome is your responsibility. We give you room to learn for yourselves how and why things go wrong and how to be your best selves to mitigate that. That's by design. No one can teach you that but experience.

"It's a privilege we have to protect, by the way. And you aren't making that easy. So, consider that, as well, next time. There is always a bigger picture. Several bigger pictures. If you are handed responsibility, you have to cherish and respect it if you want to hold onto it."

Justin expected an argument, or an attempt at excuses at this point, and was pleased to get only strained silence.

"There are two aspects of the events that cross the line. The first was the use of a weapon." He reached behind him for a miniature palm phaser edged in lime green glass and held it up. "The device in question. It was turned into Lt. Grange through a third party. It is only capable of stun, so we are at least not in the realm of a possession violation. But the user of this device lacks respect for it, and that, to me, is the same as a full violation because misused this device is a real weapon. Under the law, it is not, so that allows us to keep that aspect of the punishment within our own jurisdiction. That means you deal with me. Whoever you are."

He looked at each of them, hoped for a tell, and didn't get one. The silence continued.

"Well, we do expect you to stick together. And so long as you learn to act with wisdom and foresight, sticking together has the potential to be acceptable. You're here to learn, after all. But don't think it's gone unnoticed that this is a record number of you in here, and the targets of your prank don't exactly bleed red. And every last one of you does."

Ovid glanced at Sowser, at the others. "That wasn't a consideration, Admiral."

"Sure about that?"

Ovid moved his mouth. Finally said, "I think so, sir."

"Consider it more carefully. I want you to be absolutely certain." Justin tugged down his uniform sleeves, leaned back against the desk. Ovid and Sowser were too good at leadership. They had inserted themselves into the situation and were holding others back from stepping up.

"I've been told the reason for the attention on these particular cadets was that they were overreaching their position as first years. One of the targets is rather exceptional, so that could explain the attention, but not the tactics, and certainly not the outcome. The other individual is low average, at best, so there is absolutely no excuse for targeting her."

Justin placed the phaser on the desk behind him. "The other aspect of events that crossed the line, based on two complaints I received, was your fellow cadet's use of a harrowing psychic attack."

Sowser and Ovid glanced around their fellows. Justin noted which faces their glares went to first. One guess matched who had contacted him, the other did not.

"In general, sixth and seventh senses in Starfleet are treated the other five, no matter how enhanced. You learn to work with the people who have them and they learn to work with you. So, the outcome of that attack depends in part upon the victims' decision to pursue with the civilian authorities."

Sowser said, "I don't think that will be necessary, sir." She glanced around, took in everyone. "I don't think anyone here wants the SF courts involved in an Academy matter."

No one countered her.

"Two individuals complained, sir?" Ovid asked.

"Correct."

Ovid sent a grumbling frown around the room. Justin had some hope that the legal aspect would be dealt with without further intervention on his part. But that was optimistic.

Justin said, "One might contend that if one repeatedly stuns a touch telepath and then voluntarily touches said individual skin to skin, one is responsible for the outcome. But evidence indicates there is fault to be put on Cadet Spock as well."

"Really, sir?" Sowser said.

"Everyone here is held to the same high standard, Cadet. Without exception. You would have it be otherwise?"

She opened her mouth, her face became distressed. "I suppose, sir. Doesn't seem . . ."

"Doesn't seem . . . ?"

She dropped her gaze for the first time. "Fair, sir."

"Noted." Justin crossed his ankles the other way around. He scanned the room one more time, taking in each face, each bent head. "From the tapes we can certainly see what happened. I can also see that hand to hand needs far more attention. The cadet in question single-handedly took out well over half the individuals in this office right now. And he was a hell of a lot more gentle with you than you were with him. I do hope you think that over."

He let them sweat, let them try to stand with minimal rocking or fidgeting for another long minute.

"I intend to be harder on you than any civilian authority could be. And while you will be stronger because of it, you aren't going to like me. And a few of you will quit because if it. And that's fine. At this point in your career our goal is to figure out who we really want to invest with future responsibility. This is your first time at the top of the heap. We don't know who you are until you reach this point. You don't know who you are. Power does amazing things to people. It's like alcohol. You need to recognize your own point of no return before you get drunk on it, and learn deep within yourselves the discipline to always remain this side of sober. Always."

Justin pushed off the desk, stood straight.

"Starting tomorrow, every senior cadet will report at oh four hundred to the south plaza for three and a half hours of hand to hand training. I've recruited a rather large number of duty personnel who are between assignments or on injury leave to assist with this. They have been told to not be gentle with your egos when you fall short. And based on the tape, that's going to be most all of you."

"Everyone, sir?"

"All seven hundred and nine of you. Oh four hundred. Tomorrow. Yes." He waited. Gazes were wide, fixed in the distance. Three and a half hours out of each day would leave them no personal time at all. "That's all for now. You will be hearing from me. If you hear from anyone else about this, I've lost administrative control and some of you will not be getting a chance to prove you've learned better."

He looked around, pleased to see some sheens of sweat.

"You are dismissed."

* * *

The embassy's floor whispered under foot as the three of them made their way to the living quarters in the rear. No one spoke. The lights came up in the sitting room as they entered.

Spock shuffled his arms inside his robe sleeves. After nearly five days on a heated bed, the air sandwiched between the marble floors and high ceilings prickly cold against his skin. Sgroud and Sten came in through a rear door, waited for instructions.

Sarek turned. "Do you wish for anything, Spock?"

"Hot tea, please."

"Mild herb earth tea. He is not to have any stimulants."

Sten hobbled off. Amanda moved to put things down on the long cabinet by the windowless wall. It was unusually disorganized. The scent of the hospital was wafting through the room from their clothes. Sarek turned his attention to his correspondence. Spock touched the back of his head where the lazdrain had been removed, brushed his hair down over the sensitive swellings on his scalp.

The tea came in. Sarek motioned for Spock to sit. Spock did so with as much dignity as he could muster. He'd been resting too long, but could not fathom moving excessively even if it would relieve his aches.

Sarek sat down with his letters. He raised his head to say, "When you have finished you should retire and rest, and if you have difficulty resting we will contact Zienn."

"Yes, Father."

Amanda took the seat on the other side of Spock. This wasn't the tea room, and the table was decorative, so the tea was served on an overly large shallow silver tray. The light reflecting off it stabbed through Spock's eyes and into his skull.

"I wish to attend class tomorrow," Spock said.

Sarek raised his eyes. "Do you think that advisable?"

"The doctor stated that I may return to my normal activities as I am comfortable doing so. But preferably that I, quote, marinate in the sunshine with the hounds." Spock touched the band on his chest through his robe. "I will have the monitor on for at least a week. I cannot put myself into difficulty without triggering it and the unceremonious arrival of professional care."

Amanda smiled faintly. "I'm glad you're feeling as well as you are."

Spock cradled his tea, let the heat soak into his hands. "I am rather far behind in my classes. I would prefer to quietly attend rather than need to catch up additionally."

"You can attend from here, can you not?" Sarek asked.

"Yes."

"I would prefer that for tomorrow, if not the next day. But if you wish strongly to return the day after tomorrow, you may do so." He lifted the digital paper he was reading, sat back to consider it. "It is you who must suffer your decision."

Spock waited a time, until he was certain he would not react physically. "Do you disapprove of my continuing?"

"Less so than I would were you not departing for a time at the end of this term."

"That is not exactly an answer, Father."

Amanda put down her teacup.

Sarek kept his eyes on his digital page. "My approval of Starfleet was already weak. It has grown weaker."

Spock stared into his teacup, gave himself time to level his emotions. "What would you have me do instead?"

Sarek looked up. "That does present a problem. The idea of attending the Vulcan Science Academy displeases you."

"It does."

"May I ask why?"

Spock's tea shimmered in his hands. He couldn't hold it entirely steady. The medications dulling his nerves would be administered for at least a week, until a followup appointment the doctor deemed him fit to be off it.

"At the Science Academy I would not have earned my place, unlike Starfleet Academy. And socially I would fit in even less there than I do at Starfleet Academy. In contrast to recent events, my fellow first year cadets are interesting and mostly pleasing companions."

"I informed you that you could attend Starfleet's Academy and I will not forbid you from doing so."

Spock balanced his teacup for a time before setting it down half full. "Thank you, Father." He pushed back. "I think I will retire."

Amanda stood and followed him upstairs.

The last time Spock had been in this room, Kirk had been there with him.

"Spock. My son. Do you need anything?"

Spock sighed. Mental fatigue was weighing on his limbs. "No, mother. Thank you." He walked over to his desk which had been neatened, the electronic repair tools pushed to the corners in a way that defeated their shared purposes. "With the medications I do not think I will have difficulty resting."

She stood with an overly affectionate expression, hands clasped before her. "I am glad you're home. And that you seem all right."

"Do I?"

"Perhaps distracted."

"That is the medication. I think."

"Spock. If you have need of either of us, please page us."

He studied her.

"Well, I wish you would put pride away for just a day so we can take care of you."

"Does father wish me to be that weak?"

"Spock . . ."

Spock bowed his head. "Forgive me, Mother. I need to meditate."

She nodded sadly and departed, leaving the door ajar.

Spock took up an old padd and logged into his messages. There was a new one from Kirk.

"I'm heartened that you expect to be released on schedule. Please send me a longer message. Audio if you can arrange it. I might not get a chance to listen to it right away, but I'd like to hear your voice, hear for myself how you are doing."

Spock walked over to close the door to his room. He changed into a heavy robe that did not smell of the hospital and settled onto his bed, propped up on pillows. The bed felt punishingly cold beneath him. He cleared his throat and pressed record.

"James. I am in my room at the embassy tonight. I will likely remain for a day before returning to the dormitory and classes onsite. I have a great deal of studies to catch up on and unfortunately the medications make that more tedious than usual. I should study for a time this evening until I have no choice but to rest.

"On the other hand I have finished all of the literary readings for the term and received some introspective questioning from my mother to aid in composing an analysis of them. My own mother may be more useful to me in this way than my literature tutor, Shutan. I had not considered her skills as a possibility, to my displeasure with myself.

"As you can likely tell I am not quite myself. I hope that is the medicine, not the injury, but I will not know for at least a week. I have several followup appointments with McCoy, the xeno specialist at Med One. I am being very closely monitored ongoing. The specialist, McCoy, is adept in his area in a way I am not accustomed to. He is unofficial and strangely self denigrating, but based on how he organized my treatments, it is clear he he is highly knowledgeable and instinctively astute. Given his penchant for gut decisions on the basis of large amounts of background information but insufficient immediate data, you and he would get along well.

"I will be communicating more regularly, but if you wish for additional correspondence, you should ask Commander Overlander about her interactions with Dr. McCoy ongoing. I think she lacks for someone to speak with about this and would be pleased to have you to do so.

"I will be all right, James. I am annoyingly well looked after at this time. Please do not let me distract you. I cannot bear to."

Spock knew he sounded unsteady at the last, but sent the message as is. His eyes were hot. Overlander had accused him of worrying. With the medication working upon him, worry was an insufficient term for what Spock was experiencing.


	30. Incident, Part 6

Chapter 30 - Incident, Part 6

It was early morning, and the handful of individuals about in the main lobby of Starfleet Academy paid no attention to Spock when he beamed in. The burgeoning light filled the atrium with the same steel gray as Spock's uniform. He stopped before the public feed display to see if pausing would ease the small throb in his skull. It did. He synced his assigned padd to a terminal to register himself as on-campus and made his way with a sedate pace to his dormitory room.

Spock meditated in the silence of his room until his head felt normal. He was one of the last to arrive for Propulsion. Halfway up the tiers, P'Losiwst sat straighter, leaned over and with quick cajoling made half the row shift down to open a spot on the aisle beside her. Faces rose, watched Spock make his way with expressions varying from sympathetic curiosity to morbid curiosity.

By the time Spock was settled in place, Absom was waiting in the middle of the dais, remote in hand. He stared at Spock for ten seconds, began to lecture.

"I didn't know you were coming back today," P'Losiwst whispered.

Spock kept his head down over his padd. He kept trying to push his ill ease away into the false past, but his mind was not fully cooperating. Logically, everything was fine, and would be for the next two hours. But logical reassurance only partly dampened his body's desire to be alert to danger. If this was how humans had to function he would have to raise his esteem of their ability to excel through uncertainty.

Absom asked someone in the front row to describe the adjustments needed for thrust calculations orthogonal to a gravity source. Spock dreaded having to explain that he had been barred from doing his coursework, but he was not called upon. At the end of class, he moved slowly down and out of the auditorium with P'Losiwst close behind.

She kept close until lunch break, when she waved others on without them. They stood in the long corridor at the end of the lab wing until it cleared out.

Spock said, "I must ask if you wish to discuss what happened."

Her antenna remained forward, attentive. "You okay?"

Spock straightened. "I will be." He resisted blushing, with only partial success.

She was smiling. "Why would you ask if I want to talk if you can't bear the thought of talking?"

"I will bear it."

She shook her head in mock disgust. "Let's get lunch."

Spock had envisioned a quiet lunch in his room, or perhaps out on the lawn by the food hovers, but P'Losiwst walked straight through large groups of loitering second and third year cadets to the break area, put her pink, glittering satchel down at an open table. She didn't seem to register the sudden drop in the volume of discussion, the gazes that came around their way and fixed there.

"Sit down. I'll get you something," she said. She glanced up to verify this with him, and went to the dispensers.

Spock sat with his hands clasped between his knees. He met one staring gaze and it turned away, back to her fellows.

P'Losiwst returned. She spoke very low as she arranged the food. "Trust me, Spock. I'm an old hand at this." Acting as if nothing was amiss or different, she began eating.

"Are you an 'old hand?'" Spock said.

"Yes."

"I am surprised to learn this."

"If you are a bored teen with too much money and time and parents that want you out of the way, and on top of that a way too asshole-ish ego, what else are you going to expend it all on? You go skiing on the ice ridges of Goroth, you lock your gossiping friend who can't keep a secret outside in the snow mid-shower beside the busiest ski run. You go to the Rivingstorm concerts of Dead Sand Jupiter Station, you fix your dweebiest two wannabe new companions from your father's main competitor up with drugs they can't handle and a pair of shape shifting hookers. Shall I go on?"

"I am gaining perspective on the concept."

Other students came in, filled the tables around them with chatting, questions about lectures, teasing.

P'Losiwst licked a thick red Andorian pudding off her spoon, smiled. She continued to speak so Spock could just barely hear her. "I'm already plotting out the revenge of the century. These losers have no idea who they are dealing with." She took up another large blob of bright red, smiled broadly around the spoon in her mouth.

Spock raised a left brow. "I see."

"If you want to talk, I'm happy to listen. I might be distracted right now, but I'm listening."

Spock tried to eat, rearranged the excessive food she'd fetched him. "I regret the meld. It was an unacceptable intrusion."

"I thought it was kind of interesting."

"I hope you are being honest. It is socially untenable for me, bordering on immoral."

"I am being honest. You're tough to get to know. Really. Short of stunning you into submission and getting naked with you. That is." She ate another gloppy spoonful. Her eyes flowed with an usually high pearlescence.

Spock looked away to control the warmth on his cheeks.

"The press trying to talk to you?" she said.

"Not that I am aware of."

"My old friends are talking to them, telling them stories that didn't need to be exaggerated. But so far only in the Andorian feeds. I'd talk to them, try and make the Academy out to not look so bad, but I don't want to give the story more life. I don't want these losers getting any warning what's coming."

Spock ate a few bites. "Has your father given you any difficulty?"

She pushed her red muck around with the spoon. "He hasn't said anything. Which is weird. No way he hasn't heard." He exhaled.

"I wish to be honest with you," Spock said, "but I do not know if it is best to be."

A table of third years were departing in unusual silence. Spock would not have noted it except for the the way they acted overly normal over the top of taut nervous energy.

"Hm. There are times I prefer to be lied to. Less than before the Academy, though." She ran the spoon around inside the container, licked off the edge. Her blue tongue had turned purple. "But I guess I want you to be honest." She looked squarely at him. "I think."

"I had my father intervene with yours. I was concerned that he may insist you withdraw. I found that unacceptable."

Her wide eyes remained fixed on Spock for half a minute. "I don't even know what to say. My father wouldn't ever, in this wide galaxy, talk to yours."

"My father stated that he'd convinced your father to leave things be. He gave me no details of the meeting."

She put the empty container down and stared at it, eyes wide. "Wow."

"I made this request of him when I was not myself. I apologize for interfering."

"You are interfering." She sounded peeved.

"I value your companionship."

"You really got hit on the head." She frowned, looked down. "I shouldn't have said that. Old habits rearing up. It's okay. You notice a lot better who's a real ally after something happens."

"Logically so. This is the sort of thing that must be tested to be proved."

"Who passed the test? I wasn't much help. You kept fighting." She picked up her container, rotated it a quarter turn, set it down again.

Spock looked up at the senior cadets standing in a loose circle by the dispensers. They stood too close together, heads bowed to talk low.

"It is the staying power of loyalty that matters. And I believe your assistance is just beginning."

She smiled, showed all four sharp teeth.

\- 8888 -

The scouts were out, this time on an extra long patrol. The crew was getting impatient for something to happen, bad or good. They'd moved camp a hundred klicks because they'd been told not to remain in one place for more than seven days. And rather than wait exactly seven, Kirk moved in five and a half.

"Any new orders, sir?"

Kirk looked up at Hun standing with the greasy clouds on the horizon behind him.

"Our orders are to be on the lookout. We will end up as bait, signal confusion, or holed up in reserve when something does happen. Your guess is as good as mine which it will be."

"No idea when we'll be going back to base?"

"Nothing official. But the older team members seem to think something's imminent. I know it's hard, but don't let your guard down. All right?"

Hun scuffed his boots, one than the other, rubbed his jaw. "We've been sitting a long time."

"It's our job to sit until it becomes obvious we need to act."

Hun shuffled off. Others had raised their heads to listen in, went back to what they were doing.

Kirk tapped the smallest of his static rods on a rock and slipped it into a sectioned sleeve, rolled that up and slipped that into a pocket low on his pant leg. The phaser rifle was as clean as it was going to get. He propped it up beside him against a tall rock and sat back with his padd. He'd gotten to like the bulkiness of the armored padd. It felt like something real.

He pulled up the transcription of Spock's latest audio message. He'd listened to the message Spock had sent when he'd been released from the hospital, but not one since. Spock's low timbre had been methodical, as if his mind was running too slowly to keep up with communicating. The medications, Spock had said. Kirk hoped to hell it was that. He expected Med One would not have released him so soon if he'd been that injured, that they would have kept him for treatment. Although, for someone like Spock, maybe there wasn't any.

Kirk's gut tightened. He was avoiding a reckoning. Something he'd not expended the effort to recognize before now. He flipped down the receiver over his left ear, kept his eyes up, half on those working around him, taking his cue to clean gear, and half on the horizon between the scuttles.

"James. It is my third day at the Academy and I am still catching up. I continue to feel better, although I find that sleeping every night leaves me strangely detached during waking hours. I look forward to returning to restful meditation instead.

"My fellow student, P'Losiwst, was adamant that we act as if nothing has occurred and indeed this was wise. For her, this includes taking the table beside that filled with third year cadets and treating their sudden silence as normal. The third year class are all subdued. I suspect mostly by their lack of rest. Their break times are quite short and they hurry in the corridors, with little opportunity to correct the lower cadets.

"I am not fully accepting of the logic of punishment for all. Although, at the moment, it has created a surprising peace and calm outside of class time."

Kirk smiled, listened to the rest of the message with that smile fixed on his face. When it was done he rested the padd on his knees to tap on the screen.

"Spock. I can't reply in audio. I don't have enough privacy. Just to warn you, if we have to bug out, I won't be able to respond for a few days, or more. I badly need to you open up a little while we can talk. You keep not answering my question, which is how are YOU doing?"

Hummer stepped out of the supply scuttle and it rocked and crunched against the ground.

"Chock that with a few big rocks, crewman," Kirk said. "Something we can leave behind in a hurry."

Hummer rubbed the smooth part of his head, looked around at the ground.

Kirk turned back to his padd. Sighed. He needed to be honest with Spock if he expected honesty in return.

"Spock. If you somehow believe I can't understand where you are right now, don't think that. I do understand. All too well. You don't feel like you're accepted. But it's not true. Cadets simply ignore those that they don't like. It's like teasing and nicknames. It's not always done to harm, but to define and recognize differences so that person can be more a member despite obviously standing out. Cadets don't waste their time doing that with those they don't want to have in the service beside them.

"I know I keep telling you that you need to earn a place. You do that by keeping on with your duties, not matter the personal cost to you. I know you are doing that already, but I want you to do that secure in the knowledge that you're still on the right track."

Kirk stared at the screen. Camp was still quiet. He opened a new message to Overlander.

"Spock suggested I write you. See what's going on with you. And to ask you a favor because I think you're the only one I can ask this of. Next time you see Spock, please give him a hug from me."

\- 8888 -

"Come in, Cadet. Have a seat."

Spock stopped just before the Academy superintendent's desk. "I'd prefer to stand. If I may, Admiral."

Justin let go of his chair and came around to stand beside his desk. He looked Spock up and down. "How are you doing, Cadet?"

"Improving, sir."

Justin smiled softly. "I am very pleased to hear that. If you are up to it, I have some official business to discuss with you. If you are not up to it, it can certainly wait."

"I would like to dispense with the issue at hand, sir."

"Well, if you change your mind as we go, let me know. For starters, I'd like you to tell me what happened."

Spock straightened his back.

Justin said, "I want to hear it from you."

"I see, sir. A fellow first year cadet, P'Losiwst Jlowisam and I, were returning from a research lab tour."

"It was quite late. Which one?"

"The Antaras moon lab, sir. The meeting was late to allow for cadets to make the journey without missing class."

Justin paused. "Antaras is recruiting you? And Cadet Jlowisam as well?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, you can I understand. But Jlowisam I'm surprised by."

"After overhearing a conversation between members of the lab's management, I suggested that an engineering management intern may be applicable to their project. And they agreed."

"So you two were returning late with permission. Very good. Go on."

"Outside the gymnasium we were surrounded by third year cadets. I did not know their intent, but they were hooded and made movements that indicated they intended to waylay us rather significantly."

"You took down thirteen or fourteen of them. I saw on the scanner tape."

Spock had put his emotions aside already. "I had no difficulty until I was stunned. I, unwisely, tried to rise from the first blast. And was stunned a second time. I regained consciousness already stripped and taped to my companion."

Spock waited. Justin nodded that he should go on.

"Our attackers disputed about their plan. And it was settled that we would be doused in the fountain."

"But they didn't make it. They dropped you. Why did they drop you?"

"I do not like water."

Justin smiled with an unwilling wrinkle to his lips. "Are you hydrophobic, cadet?"

"No. I could, if necessary, immerse myself with minimal hesitation. This was unnecessary. And I estimated the water would be cold."

"I suspect you are correct. What did you do?"

Spock straightened more, stared at the wall behind the desk. "I removed the barriers to my mind so that those carrying us would experience what I was experiencing."

Justin raised his chin. "That's all you did?"

"Yes. The stun's effect overwhelmed my disciplines and the muscle weakness. . ." Spock tried to find words for his state of mind that night, repeatedly tugging helplessly at bonds that should fall away easily.

"Can you go on?"

Spock didn't like the quiet airiness of his own voice, but he had to continue. "I simply wished to be left alone. But my means to achieving that were unconscionable and for that I am regretful. It is not the way of our people to act in such a manner. And I have represented my people poorly as well as breached a significant social more."

Justin looked him over for a time. "I'm curious. Could you have done more than what you did, more than just using what you were already experiencing against someone. Are you capable of it?"

Spock looked away at the tall stone curve of a sculpture in the corner. "Given time to meditate. Perhaps. This is not something I have practiced. Obviously." Spock thought of Sybok and felt even more darkly regretful.

"It's actually being taken quite seriously."

Spock fixed his gaze somewhere beyond the corner of the room, beyond the statue. He felt relieved, and wondered at the illogic of it. "I understand, Admiral. May I enquire if I should have a representative here at this time?"

Justin again held back a smile. "I am your representative, cadet. I have no interest in losing you from this institution. But if you'd prefer another in addition, we can hold off further discussion until we can bring one here."

Spock exhaled slowly and didn't breathe in again. His mind cleared. "I have already admitted guilt."

Justin waited as if to see if Spock would say more. He crossed his arms. "You lost control due to the specific nature of the events. Would you agree?"

"Yes, sir."

"What precisely would you say caused you to lose control?"

Spock remembered the frantic thought patterns, the helplessness. "I couldn't move except very weakly. I couldn't shake the grip of hands that should not have been able to hold me."

"Being stunned then."

"My nervous system was still inhibited." Spock finally met Justin's gaze. "That is no excuse," Spock said.

"You were disoriented I would expect?"

"Not at that time. Upon regaining consciousness, yes. My mind and my companion, P'Losiwst's minds were intermingled. That was quite disorienting."

Justin's arms fell. He put a hand on the desk behind him. "I spoke with her. She didn't mention that. She didn't mention much, actually. Seemed unconcerned by events."

Spock who knew she was planning a brutal, intricate revenge said, "She is resilient."

"That's what we like to hear."

"I shall try to be more so as well, sir."

"You are leaving us at the end of the term for a time in an exclusive temple, as I recall. This will include mental discipline training of a sort?"

"My time there will be entirely mental and telepathic discipline, sir."

"And you are quite young for your race. You barely qualify to be here."

This wasn't a question.

Justin stepped behind his desk. "We're all in the process of learning, Cadet. I'll contact you when I need you again. You're dismissed."

His voice stopped Spock at the door. "Cadet. Anything else that might happen the rest of the term will be given undo scrutiny. Please keep that in mind."

Spock thought of P'Losiwst's plotting. "Understood, sir." 


	31. By Design

Chapter 31 - By Design

Spock touched his head, ran his fingertips over the back of his hair for the seventh time that day, a habit of a type he'd never had before. His hair was just long enough to obscure the shaved areas on his skull. It was fortunate he'd resisted his mother's admonitions to get it cut.

Spock walked up the left side of the Annex auditorium. Jaek and Horton were already in their seats on far end of the top row. They'd directed the group hauling himself and P'Losiwst to the fountain, but Spock had not identified them, for reasons that had originally felt like an investment but now seemed slippery.

Spock felt nothing. Even medicated his disciplines could be made more than equal to this. Kirk, especially, would expect him to handle this with calm detachment.

Horton stared straight ahead as Spock sat down. Jaek looked over, raised his chin. "Doing okay, Cadet?"

"Yes, sir." Spock took a seat.

The room filled. Chanel strode in. Her eyes scanned from Spock across to the other cadets, back again. Back another time. Then she moved on, lectured on superstructure and skin and why ships were the classes they were in with an angle toward getting the students to understand that even decisions that were no longer valid had a validity borne of consistency. The room seemed doubtful, which was probably why Chanel was being more mocking than usual.

The lecture moved to procurement, specifications and the systems that supported that and the importance of understanding why they worked the way they did. Mostly so the computers didn't just take over everything.

She exhausted this topic, glanced at the clock.

"We have a bit of time today. I'd like to indulge in a little game we sometimes play in these advanced classes. It's a game called Stump the NUB. We don't have any NUBs, so a senior cadet will have to suffice." She raised her eyes to the back row. "Cadet Jaek, come down here."

She gestured for someone in the front row to bring over one of the stools from beside the wall.

"Sit down, Cadet. Name, Rank, Serial Number."

Jaek recited this with embarrassed amusement. Down under the lights on the dais he appeared paler, almost ashen.

"Why are you in this class?" Chanel said.

"I requested permission last year, but my request was denied and I was given a list of things I needed to accomplish to be allowed to participate this year. I did those, successfully, apparently, and now I am here."

"Why are you in THIS class?"

Jaek's mouth opened, hung there. "My family has a long history of ship design and construction. My mother, my great uncle, my great grandfather were all project leads on an off for large ships. Many in my family have worked on colony and private vessel design and in servicing of private and Starfleet ships. We own voting shares in several companies that operate in this industry as well as freelancing."

"So you are following in their footsteps. This topic is in your genes."

Jaek's bright gaze fixed straight ahead. "Yes, Captain."

"You've lived and breathed ship design your whole life. That's, I think, what you said in your messages to me. Those many many messages." Chanel put her hands behind her back. "Making your family proud, are you?"

Jaek did the impossible and sat even straighter. "Yes, Captain. Very."

"I see."

Chanel paced once, back and forth behind him. She gestured for another stool to be brought over, pointed at a spot four meters to the side of the first stool.

"Cadet Spock, come down here."

Spock felt a twinge in his gut before he shunted the reaction aside. He brought his controls down hard.

He made his way down the side steps and waited to be instructed to take the empty stool, bowed faintly, and seated himself with slow movements that wouldn't jar his head.

"Cadet Spock." Chanel sauntered over and stopped beside him. "Why are you in this class?"

"You ordered me to attend it, sir."

"Know anything about ship design before that?"

"No sir. If I had been prompted, I suppose I would have assumed such a branch of engineering must exist."

"I've seen Vulcan ships," Chanel said, "I can imagine design isn't something you've thought much about before now."

"Yes, sir."

A few of the faces in front of Spock shifted from brows low and discerning to relaxed and curled of lip. Spock was isolated too much from his emotions to interpret this beyond the obvious.

"I ordered you into this course about two or three weeks before the start of class. Something like that?"

"Would you like the precise date and time?"

"No. That's okay."

Spock eased off on his emotional disciplines because he needed to better understand what was happening around him. He decided she sounded amused, if not doting.

"So." She addressed the class at large. "With that bit of background, let's play Stump the NUB. Any question, remotely on topic, is fair game. I'll start. Mr. Jaek, if I have a fleet issue mobile backup coolant pump, eight meters of zero point five six teflack emergency hose, and 400 equivalent meters of standard pipe, including seven meters of boiler coil, what is the pressure at the farthest point from the pump?"

Jaek blinked. "Well. It, it better be above whatever the minimum allowed value for that system. I could look it up."

"I see. Cadet Spock?"

"6.43102 times ten to the 5th pascal assuming there are no valves and the pump is working precisely at specification."

One of the Lieutenants in the second row bit his lips.

"Correct, although my computation differed on the fifth decimal place." Chanel raised an arm to the room at large. "Who wants to go next? Don't be shy. I grade down for shy, less so for stupid." She pointed. "But please don't be stupid. Yes, Mr. Tintelin."

A small, bulky ensign halfway up leaned forward in his seat. "Who am I asking?"

"They'll both get a chance to answer. Go ahead."

"My question is on field emitters. Which we haven't covered yet and I'm hoping we do, with all respect, Captain, ships don't matter without some protection. But my question is this. If I have a 1.3 version Rohm Tesla emitter and its antenna is zero point four of a meter off the hull, what kind of coverage can I get for pinhole debris protection at half a warp?"

"Mr. Jaek?" Channel said.

"Sir? Do I always go first?"

"Cadet." Behind her back, Chanel's fingers wriggled impatiently. "if I call on Mr. Spock first, you won't need to answer."

Jaek's expression flattened.

"Do you have an answer, Cadet?"

"I could run the models. Sir."

"You don't have an answer?"

Jaek opened his mouth, closed it. Shrugged. "I don't have an answer. No one could have an answer just like that unless that was their specialization."

Chanel continued to face Jaek. "Spock, go ahead."

"I need an equation for the shape of the hull."

Chanel said, "Assume the standard rimmed parabola of the primary hull like the newer classes. Simplify it if you need to, this isn't final design. You know that shape?"

Spock nodded. "The coverage area for seven micron dust is only fourteen point eight seven meters radius if placed at the center of the hull. Not very broad."

"How much power to get coverage on a real hull?" Tintelin asked.

"Unless the ship is very small, you will need an overlapping radial array of emitters with that technology. But that will be problematic, as there will be interference nodes with with far less protection every thirty degrees."

Tintelin sat back, nodded with satisfaction as if he knew the answer already.

"But, sir," Jaek said. "Of course this is easy for him . . ."

Chanel tipped her head. Waited. "You were saying, Cadet?"

Jaek mustered himself, Spock could feel it in the way the human's body grew electrically irritated. "He's a computer, sir."

There was a lengthy pause. Chanel raised her head to the class. "How about a soft arts question? Woodzer, you're working on a multi generational ship and have far more questions than answers based on your flimsy and disorganized mid-term project report. Give us a real meaty, non computer sort of problem you need solved down here."

Woodzer scratched her broad red bald head. Her spiky hair started well behind her ears, so there was a lot to scratch. "I've been trying to apply Uplongen's Compendium of Social Architecture of Large Ships to my design, but the long term simulations are far less than satisfactory and I've been reduced to tweaking and waiting hours for the runs only to have the same poor outcomes. I've even changed my crew and passenger features, which I really don't want to do, narrowing cultural aspects, etc. It's not working out. I need an idea what's wrong. If that's an okay question."

"Jaek, this is your area," Chanel said. "So you should go first."

"It's likely in the communal areas and the size of quarters. But I'd have to see the designs, sir. Play with them for a few weeks. Architecture is an art, as my uncle always says." Jaek looked over at Spock. "It's a really soft art."

"Spock?"

Spock knitted his fingers. His head was throbbing vaguely and he could not resist repeated failed attempts to block the discomfort as though it were a peripheral injury. He steeped himself in his thoughts, grateful his mind was working well almost in defiance of the discomfort. "While doing readings in preparation for this course, I read Uplongen. I found him to be an unreliable update to Yerseph and Yurin, whose work he heavily based the compendium on. The original work was the outcome of decades of moon and Mars based studies in the twenty-one hundreds and was strictly a collection of real world observations, not rules. From my reading, Uplongen injected a great deal of personal bias into those observations in compiling his design rules. He also seems to have bastardized a Rigellian work from their early space flight studies that has the title Kilonautics in Standard translation. Perhaps the ensign would be served by reverting to the original studies and disregarding Uplongen's rules for the design."

Woodzer hesitated before picking up her padd and scribbling on it with a finger. Chanel was rubbing her chin and mouth as if to avoid smiling.

"How many books have you read to prepare for this class with your few weeks of warning, Cadet?"

"Thirty four."

"What did you read?"

"I started with a recommended list I found on an old syllabus from before you taught this course, sir."

"I don't have a reading list. Cadet. Because no one reads."

"I see, sir. I then read what those books most heavily cited. Then I coded an application that interleaved the specifications and engineering change orders for the three latest ships constructed and launched for Starfleet to see how those ideas were implemented."

"And how are they implemented?" She sounded gentle, as if they were talking about something touching.

Spock's head twinged. He forced himself to relax, to nearly float, and the pain faded. He heard his own voice, calm and confident and wondered at it. "Sporadically. But the design rules are present, sometimes historically, sometimes in recent revision even if they are not strictly abided. What I find most intriguing about this entire iterative, evolutionary process is where shortcuts are made and how they are determined to be acceptable. A specification is a specification."

Chanel nodded as if to herself. "It's true that they usually cannot all be met."

"I find that disturbing, sir."

She smiled. "Interesting. Maybe that's why Vulcan ships skip design. And therefore the need to meet the bulk of specifications."

"I had not considered that, sir. But perhaps."

Chanel paced to the side and faced the class. "So. Show of hands, all of you. Of these two cadets, which of you would prefer Cadet Spock as a NUB on your ship?"

Most hands went up. Despite Kirk's insistence that he would be valuable and his own experience with integrating into the Ranger's engineering team, Spock was surprised at the lack of hesitation.

"Or who would prefer Cadet Jaek." Hands went down. Four went up.

Beside him, Spock heard Jaek swallow hard.

"Mr. Mintimore, you didn't vote." Chanel walked over to stand before someone in the third tier. Stood waiting for an answer.

Mintimore's bushy brows appeared stubborn. "No sir."

"Why not?"

"I didn't know it would be acceptable to vote for Mr. Jaek."

Chanel waved her hand to indicate the tiers. "Others did. I asked for a simple preference. That's all." She turned and strode back to the center of the dais. "Mr. Mintimore, you can have Mr. Jaek as a partner for your final project. Cadet Jaek, you can return to your seat."

Spock remained unmoving on the stool, grateful the heels of his regulation boots hooked the footrest bar so securely. He was growing fatigued. The condition of his mind was still impacting negatively on his body.

"Cadet Spock. Regarding that first problem I described, add onto that system a coil for a standard gravity pump and a routing through four meters of underdeck chiller in computing. What size pump do I put in place?"

"There isn't one specced high enough, sir, currently in Starfleet's procurement catalog."

"How short does the routing need to be to meet spec?"

"Forty one point nine three meters. Again, assuming the pump is operating precisely at specification."

"It will be. They are always higher." The corner of her mouth rose. "Unfortunate in a way. Creates a culture of universally pushing the equipment by that expected twenty nine and a half percent." She strode away to look over the tiers of students. "Cadet, you are how old in Vulcan years?"

"I will be sixteen in three days."

"Fifteen then."

Spock became uncomfortably aware of sitting alone at the center of attention. "Yes, sir."

Before him, the faces had gone wary but curious beneath a flattened expression that he'd observed before in officers who were trying to hide their reactions from others. Again, Spock rebalanced the need to suppress his own emotions against the need to understand what he was facing.

Chanel turned halfway to Spock. "And contrary to your fellow cadet's unfortunate biases, on Vulcan you struggled in math." When he didn't respond immediately, she said, "Correct?"

"I was somewhat slower than my peers."

Chanel said, "Two years you were held back, if I recall."

Spock experienced a constriction against drawing breath. Blindsided, a human term he had never understood. He could have been hit physically.

Chanel said, "Yet you can rattle off solutions to fluid dynamics models."

Spock's new disciplines allowed him to shed emotion, not compress it, which would be hopeless right then. He did so, felt himself pass through everything hammering at him, and beyond it into a calm that couldn't read faces, nor cared about the minds behind the faces. He likely revealed his struggle, but not long, and now he didn't care that he had.

Spock sat almost serenely. At least his head didn't hurt. "Yes, sir."

The student's gazes tracked aggressively over to Chanel as she spoke, as if she had grown dangerous and required keen observation.

"And science as well, you had difficulty?"

A factual answer for a factual question. "I only needed one year of extra time in science, sir."

"Your mid-term project needed just a few nudges and it would have been a full thesis on engine resonance. Yet you struggled on Vulcan."

"My father hired tutors for me for each subject in which I had difficulty, Captain. I do not require much sleep." He still does that, Spock considered. In this way, less had changed than he'd been assuming.

Chanel paced away a few steps, looked up at the class. "Everyone catch that. I hope." She scanned the room. "Give me six months and I could put this cadet - this young adult - in any of your jobs. And he's barely average where he comes from." She turned back to Spock, tilted her head. "Why do you think you needed to work extra hard in school, Cadet?"

"My family is of the priest class, sir. We are not scholars. We have honed the skills of mind disciplines over thousands of years, not math nor large amounts of textual learning."

This wasn't the answer she was expecting, and Spock harbored the gratification that followed, savored it inside his bubble.

"Interesting. I didn't realize that." She turned on her heel back to the class. "Too many of you make the same assumption our senior cadet did just now. That individuals like Spock here didn't get their extraordinary skills the same way every else here did, by being disciplined to work their asses off.

"I keep hearing how Starfleet is stalled. How we just slowly incrementally upgrade. That we've gone too long between leaps in technology. Well. If anyone in this room doesn't understand now what we need to do to change that. . . You're the reason we're stuck. So do something about it. Start making this place more welcome to our nearest neighbor and their exceptional talents."

She stepped back to Spock, put a hand on his shoulder, which he saw coming. "Doing all right, Cadet?"

He sensed the question wasn't regarding the last ten minutes, but regarding his injury. His head throbbing faintly, more so when he thought about it, which was illogical. "Yes, Captain."

"Return to your seat."

Spock stood up. Someone in a mid-tier row said, "Captain Chanel, who gets Cadet Spock as a final project partner?"

Spock hesitated, decided he needn't wait and made his way to the back row. From his hunched position on the end Jaek watched Spock sit down, then looked away.

"I'll have to think about that. That's a good question."


	32. Message

Chapter 32 - Message

Spock entered Med One's office tower and waited while his padd updated to give him the location of his appointment. A group of doctors waited at the lifts in shiny white double breasted jackets buttoned all the way up to the shoulder. One of them looked up and down at Spock's cadet uniform.

Spock's padd updated to show room 5405. He moved to the lifts, keeping a few meters back as if the doctors were officers. The lift arrived and those waiting turned to Spock as if to check that he was joining them.

Spock stood with his back to the wall of the lift. He appreciated at that moment how much he fit in at the Academy. The doctors' discussion continued unabated.

"They were ready to remove the whole organ. Grow a transplant. But there's no unmutated cells left to do that with. You still need to splice in a donor. Why not just use a donor in the first place and crisp in compatible types like we used to? Odds of cleaning out all the mutations? Seems like zero to me."

All but two got off at the forty seventh floor and the lift grew quiet. Then it stopped at fifty four.

"You visiting Leonard?"

"Dr. McCoy. Yes."

"Len gets all the publishable cases." One said to the other.

Up here the corridors were stylish and quieted electronically to a hush. At the indicated suite, McCoy was talking to someone else beside the domed reception kiosk. He looked up with a gaze that seemed to take in more than was available visually.

Spock sat on the examination table as instructed. McCoy made him follow a pin light, checked his reflexes. He picked up a hand scanner and adjusted the settings. "Headaches?"

"Minor ones, but not in the last sixteen hours."

Spock turned his head as instructed to be scanned. The device was snapped closed and put aside.

"Good. Any real doozies?"

"If by that colloquialism you mean extremely painful, no. But I cannot block the pain of them."

"Put your head down for a moment so I can check how the portals are healing."

Spock bent over and rested his head on his arm propped on the table, waited while fingers moved through his hair, touching sensitive flesh.

"Sit up. Unzip your top so I can get that monitor off you. I'll give you a smaller one that doesn't dispense." McCoy busied himself with things sealed in bags that were clear on one side and heavy plasticized cloth on the other.

"Am I a publishable case?" Spock said.

McCoy looked up but his hands kept working, peeling things back, pulling activation tabs. "I would say no." He came back over. "Why? Do you want to be?"

"No."

Spock pulled his arms free of his sleeves so he could slip his thermal shirt off. Each section of the long band on his chest glowed green. The third section to the right was a little heavier to allow for loading a drug cartridge, the fourth was a comm unity. He sat and waited while McCoy considered him.

"Something you want to talk about?"

Spock didn't know the answer to this. He had spoken without forethought from some well of annoyance he'd apparently not acknowledged nor meditated upon. He felt an intense sadness wash through him like a wave of inky water.

"Let's get you off those meds, okay?" This was stated with great gentleness.

Spock held himself steady and did not respond.

"They'll be a prick when this comes off." McCoy tugged the monitor off, section by section, put it aside. He passed a sterile field over Spock's chest and aligned the new one, which was only a finger wide and barely heavier than tape except on the end which held the comm unit.

"You can get dressed. But stay put." The last was snapped out.

McCoy put things in a neat stack in two racks and came back, rested one hand on the table beside Spock. "Catching up in your studies?"

"Yes. Slowly."

"Doing okay with being around the kinds of students who attacked you?"

Spock hesitated. "It is getting better. The first day was the most uncertain. But illogically so. There is no reason to expect a repeat of events."

"Okay. Let's see. Your parents weren't putting on an act, I didn't sense. But are they supporting you? Not blaming you for what happened?"

"My father wishes I would do something other than attend Starfleet Academy, but he stands by his word that I can attend."

"That doesn't answer the question."

"I do not wish to mislead you. My presence at the Academy is my choice. He has not explicitly disavowed my responsibility, but he also has not reminded me unnecessarily of said connection to my decisions."

McCoy's face strained for a moment. "Right." He raised his chin, propped his free hand on his hip. "How's that boyfriend of yours doing?"

"According to his messages, well enough."

There was a long pause. Spock was certain he'd answered this equitably.

McCoy frowned. "You're not allowing yourself to miss him. Are you?"

Spock hesitated, but eventually shook his head. He dared not speak while the center of his chest was this malleable and fragile.

"The meds are still in your bloodstream but they aren't inventing this emotion," McCoy waited, face set.

Spock's feet were dangling off the table. He resisted moving his toes to seek out a footing. "I do not know what you intend for me to say."

"This is the trouble with being a hybrid raised without consideration to that hybridity. You've never learned to cope back when it would have been easier to learn it."

"That is untrue. I have coped with a similar emotion most of my childhood."

"If you've been lonely long enough to get used to it then what's wrong now?"

Spock stared at the silvery cabinet behind the doctor. "I do not know."

"Well, I think I do. You are reaching the age where you are supposed to get serious about pairing off."

"I am a Vulcan. Instinct is not supposed to rule me."

"Biology usually wins, I find. Mind over matter is a lie."

Spock breathed slowly instead of sighing.

McCoy patted Spock's arm. "Sighing IS a valid outlet, my boy. But you are going to suffer if you don't at least figure out what's what. Okay? You'll feel better in about twelve hours when the meds have worn off, but that's not an excuse to keep ignoring what's going on here. Understand?" McCoy waited with the same hard expression as before.

"Understood."

"You're allowed to miss someone you care about, you know. What you do with the emotion is what matters."

"It will be at least a year before I see him."

"And so? Then you really better figure out what to do with it. No way you can ignore it that long."

"I am trained to put everything aside."

"Yeah. And how's that working for you? At the very least, understand it before you do that. For example, I can only assume you asked that question about being a publishable case because you're feeling vulnerable."

Spock looked away. "I do not know why I asked. But I do not like being an experimental subject."

"Understandable. But that's not the point. Everything else gets ten times harder if you feel vulnerable. And if you can't recognize that's part of the problem . . ." He poked Spock in the chest. "Then you are in trouble. Understand?"

Spock breathed in and held it. "Yes."

McCoy patted Spock's knee and stepped back and Spock slid down off the table.

"I'll see you in a week. Any headaches, or anything odd with your vision, or your memory, you call me immediately. I don't like emergency calls. Even though I realize that's how we met. You show up in Med One's Trauma Unit again without warning me, forget your head, there's going to be trouble, with me. Got it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Yes sir . . ." He huffed, rolled his eyes. "Don't remind me, Cadet. Dismissed. I guess."

* * *

"Maybe there is some reason I hadn't considered before why you don't want to tell me what's going on with you."

Spock stared at the message from Kirk. He'd given Kirk a full accounting of his meeting with the Academy Superintendent. Kirk had assured him that hard-nosed was standard all around when things went wrong and that Justin's verifying Spock's upcoming temple training and age meant he would use that to try and shut down any organizational trouble for Spock over the psychic attack. Spock did not see any other immediate concern for himself that warranted Kirk's time.

Spock could hear Kirk's voice in the words of the text. "Spock. Damn it. I wish I could talk to you live. Look. I worry that if you can't open up to me, you can't open up to anyone. And since what's happened is already isolating, I don't want you feeling more alone by choice. Reply. Right now. And tell me what you don't want me to know."

Spock's chest tightened. He needed to depart soon for his session with Zienn, but this sounded akin to an order.

The medication was still degrading in Spock's bloodstream and he didn't want to hear his own voice. He tapped out a response.

"I do not know what you wish me to say. You have far greater concerns." Spock's fingers stopped. He'd rephrased this sentiment every message that week. Spock had a number of people looking after him, and Kirk was solely in charge of many lives. It was not logical that Kirk expend energy on events occurring on earth. Bue Spock had been commanded to usurp that clear logic.

Heat built beneath Spock's ribs. He started the message over again. "What purpose does it serve for me to burden you? What shall I say? That I feel instinctively, illogically uneasy at the Academy. That I must reduce my estimation of fitting in to a level that displeases me. That I miss physical contact with you to a point of experiencing the effects of a severe lack of food or water?"

The heat in his gut became a slowly rotating ache.

"Do you wish to hear these things for your own reasons that I cannot see the logic in? My interactions with you are a world apart from the others around me. I still do not understand what we have such that I can understand what I am missing in its absence. It is safer for me not to consider it at all, as I have been trained to do since I was very young. You wish me to overcome that for what end purpose when you are not even here to assist with the aftermath of having done so."

Spock's breathing had sped up. He calmed it and the other reactions, and lacking the anger, felt empty. The anger certainly was more satisfying. McCoy's advice, cynically delivered, had been working upon him.

He typed more slowly. "I am incomplete right now, in a new way that I cannot understand. You are correct that I need time away from you to comprehend this. But it does not make that time pleasing, nor does it make me wish to expound upon the process. But since you insist, I have done so. If I continue in this manner, I risk giving in to anger with no outlet for it. And I must depart or be late for my clearly much needed training in mental control."

Spock sent the message without rereading it, felt both satisfied and alarmed at having done so.

At Overlander's apartment, Zienn opened the door. He tilted his head and spoke softly. "I sensed you in the lift coming up."

Spock remained outside. He clasped his hands before himself and said in formal Vulcan, "I apologize for my appalling state of control, honored teacher."

"Come in. You are not so offensive as to need to remain outside."

Spock kept his head down. Overlander was leaning on the counter. He greeted her quietly and waited to be invited in farther.

"Everything all right, Spock?"

Spock forced his shoulders to relax. He was reminded that losing control gained him nothing but additionally dismaying emotions. Better to remain locked down in the first place.

"I fully expect things will be all right in time," Spock said.

"James asked me to give you a message."

Spock raised his head. "Did he?"

She strode forward and put her long arms around him. Spock lowered his head until his nose just touched her shoulder. Her arms tightened, then patted him on the back. He was released just as suddenly and held at arms length and inspected.

"This was the message?" Spock asked.

"He thought you needed a hug."

Spock looked down, felt warmth on his cheeks. "I see."

"Better?"

"Yes and no."

She grinned. He could feel her sympathetic amusement through her touch even through his robes.

Zienn was standing off to the side, the picture of patience. Spock felt another flush of embarrassment, which was better than the hurt anger it had replaced. She let him go and busied herself with making juice.

Spock stood before Zienn and waited as if for a verdict. The juicer ran, three times.

Zienn said, "Surak instructed us to rule our emotions not only for our own sake."

Spock looked up. He hadn't believed he'd lost track of that.

"Anger is very dangerous. Anger at the self becomes anger at others when the self tries to wall itself away from it. Far better to release the reason for it until one has control again and can re-approach the problem with logic. A given situation is never more important than control. Understand?"

Spock knew all this, but he nodded. If Zienn had concluded that Spock needed reminding than he must accept that he did.

Zienn's hard-set face relaxed. "Very good. Why don't we have juice and then repeat your last exercises so I can assess if your injury is causing you difficulty."

Spock nodded, found profound relief in obediently giving himself over for two hours.

* * *

"We're ordered to stay put until we have no choice otherwise."

The debris shook loose by the latest explosion two klicks away continued to slide and settle into lower spots around the towering rocks.

"They know we're here," Ranran said. His tall body leaned awkwardly backward so he could glance between rocks with his helmeted head. Not everyone had donned full armor when the blasts started. Before it got worse, they expected to load into armored skuttles and could move faster bare-limbed.

The next shell sent debris fountaining up farther away and the next still farther.

"Risk a scan, sir?" Ranran again.

Lt. Uirik answered for Kirk. "Not while we're squatting quiet."

Uirik was Kirk's second, and Kirk didn't want to undermine her, but he did which she'd cover that red hair with a helmet. Some of the team wore camo bandannas that appeared to bend light, pulling in the colors around them.

"They're too close not to triangulate on it," Kirk said. "The target progression might be a trick to make us think they are looking elsewhere for us. We sit for the moment. But be ready to move." Pointless to say. They would be ready to move from a dead sleep.

"Give me a map on a shielded device, someone," Kirk said.

Scanner pulled out a hardened padd and held it out. Red bars flashed around the perimeter, indicating one or more data source was out of date by more than an hour. There was better cover to the southeast. Sort of obviously better cover. If he were the enemy, he'd suspect himself of being there even if the firing wasn't aimed there. If he were the enemy and knew he was smart and had good discipline, he'd know he'd never be there. Unless both of them knew they were smart, in which case, he might again suspect it as a location.

Kirk pushed up and peered between the rocks at one end of the camp, walked to the next and the next, plotted the incoming strike locations visually, roughly.

"I have them more precisely, sir," Hummer said holding up a scanner. "We don't need to cast a beam or our own to measure something emitting."

Kirk stared out. "Understood, Ensign." He blindly held out the screen in Hummer's direction eyes fixed on the landscape. "Mark them on there."

Kirk's marks were overlaid with new marks. "You were pretty close, sir. Perhaps I shouldn't have interrupted your thoughts."

"It's okay. Glad to have it confirmed." Kirk rubbed grit from his left eye, held up the screen and thought about the firing pattern. The ordinance came in shielded, silent. But the gaps in the terrain and the shape of the blast put some limits on the angle of attack. "I think they're here." Kirk circled an area behind the distant high ground. A spot almost too obvious.

"Are they smart or stupid?" Kirk asked no one in particular.

"They're here in the first place, fighting over nothing."

"Some people like a good fight," Kirk had to keep himself from smiling.

"You amused, sir?"

Head's turned, lifted from awkward positions where they'd taken cover.

"Would I rather be sitting on the edge of a nebula sending probes in to collect data on star formation, absolutely? Do I like a good game of strategy? Also absolutely."

Kirk held out the screen and pointed. "Let's move out along this shallow valley. It will put us behind this far too excellent cover, but not for long. And I think they think we're only average intelligence, so we'll be okay to cross through there. The skuttles will fly wide, low and shielded. Three crew each. Wait to take off until a large blast is filling their sensors with noise so we don't give away where we've been skulking this whole time. Skuttles will provide diversion, give away their position once they're four hundred klicks away, make it look like we've decamped a great distance, then a stealthy return to just beyond the horizon, and covering fire only if called in. Right? Pack up."

There was a second of recognition of the meaning of his words, then everyone went into motion. Kirk felt good. It was time to do something, especially something unexpected.


	33. Movement, Part 1

Chapter 33 - Movement, Part 1

"Target is still six days away by foot, sir," Lt. Uirick said.

Kirk had sensed this question a day ago, had tried to estimate when it would be voiced. Today or tomorrow, he'd figured.

"Yes." He peered back at her with an easy expression. Perhaps he shouldn't still be gauging her or the others like that, but couldn't help himself.

She frowned. The others were loosening armor for their break time, sucking on snack packets. They were listening by not obviously listening.

Kirk smiled faintly. "If you were the enemy, where would you think we were right now?"

"With the skuttles."

Kirk nodded as if that were the end of it.

"Our orders are to remain in the vicinity."

"Any movement on foot is in the vicinity. By definition. Are you getting tired? I mean physically?"

"No sir."

Kirk looked around. Gazes were fixed elsewhere with a tense casualness.

"Personally, I find light hiking to be less exhausting than sitting around. Although the armor is burdensome, we need the scan blocking for the open areas."

"I know, sir." She looked off in the direction of their target. Her red eyebrows wrinkled with a frown. She pushed her helmet up off her head more. "What if they've moved?"

She was just tossing this out, he was certain. He assumed she wanted an excuse for questioning because the conversation had gone farther than she'd thought it would.

"I think we'd have sensed them, unless they are very careful. Their blocking isn't as good as the Colonists' used to be when they are on the move. Another reason they won't expect us. In any event, we are still in the area, as ordered."

From where he sat crosslegged on the ground, Hummer said, "If we ambush them, and it's one of the bigger convoys, that will be quite the coup."

"I don't want anyone thinking about glory," Kirk said. "It makes you less wise at the worst time. Okay?"

Hummer sounded confused, "Yes, sir." Hummer tore open another tube of snack goo with some aggression.

Kirk started a countdown until he'd speak again. Considered prompting him right before.

"Sir?"

"Yes?"

"You weren't thinking about glory on Tellun Vi, sir? Or Wolfram?"

"Certainly not on Wolfram. I was thinking about living to get home. Tellun . . ." Kirk rubbed his brow. "I was not in my right mind on Tellun. I can't answer that honestly. How about this? Hiking is better than sitting. If we take them out, we go on leave sooner. Do you need a better reason?"

"No, sir. I wasn't questioning your orders, sir."

Kirk sat up just slightly, he'd been speaking to them as a group, and Hummer heard him as an individual. "Right. You weren't."

Kirk glanced at Uirik. She tapped the barrel of her phaser rifle on the ground. "Break over, sir?"

Darkness came on with long shadows. They were bedded down for the night in a small valley. Kirk found Uirik on guard duty at the lip of a larger of the small hills before he put his head down for a few hours.

"Curious about something, Lieutenant."

"Sir?" She was whispering.

Kirk thought that attitude not a bad one and dropped his voice as well. "The Skuttle crews. You know them better than I. How long will they hold position before disobeying?"

She looked away. Up close her raised helmet faceplate had myriad tiny images of the dimming light of the sunset. "I honestly . . ." She made a sound of disgust. "I don't know. You didn't repeat the orders."

"They weren't complicated."

"Yeah. Repeating increases the importance."

Kirk nearly scoffed. He wanted to treat people as smarter than that, dearly hoped that wasn't a mistake. If it was, he wasn't sure he could stomach adapting.

"If there isn't any shooting . . ." Uirik tipped her head to the side and back. "They'll probably stay put."

"That's all I'm asking them to do."

"Ten days is a long time to split the teams up with no regular comm."

"Can't risk it."

"I know that, sir."

Kirk sighed. "Well. We'll see. Thanks."

She made a motion with her hand Kirk didn't understand. She sounded uncertain, maybe amused. "Anytime, Commander."

* * *

Spock breathed in and out before stepping into the Starfleet Annex, pushed every emotion involving embarrassment aside. The tiers were full of relaxed, reading or chatting officers, as usual. A few looked up as he entered, watched him as he made his way to the left staircase.

"Cadet."

Spock stopped. In a row a third of the way up, an ensign in blue reached out to slide his things along the curved narrow table. "Sit here."

Spock glanced around the others nearby who were either involved in their own devices or only mildly curious.

"Sir," Spock said, and slid by two people and into the seat.

Spock centered his padd before him, resisted checking the back of his head with his fingers. Chanel came in, paid only the slightest attention to where Spock was sitting. She lectured on hull shape and warp fields, hull shape and radiation, hull shape and shielding and warp fields, grew increasingly derisive of designs that radiated harmfully across a gap back to the ship rather than shedding entirely into space. Ships needed to be sparse and long for a reason. Designers with delusions of aesthetics and beancounters with delusions of cost savings had to accept that.

"Final assignment."

Everyone around Spock shifted as though just waking up.

"I'm giving each project group a ship class and a starting set of drawings. And a set of significantly revised specifications to meet. So many changes you won't finish. Let me warn you of that. You will work in groups of two or three, but no more, and no flying solos. Got it? You're dismissed. Except Lt. Carrom whom I want to see down here."

Spock didn't get by Chanel. She waylaid him with a tip of her head.

"You look like you feel a little better today, Cadet."

Spock nodded. He was settling back in, forgot for many minutes at a time that anything had interrupted his instruction here. A broad-shouldered man in a red uniform rumpled at the cuffs came aside the Captain.

"Lieutenant, you know Cadet Spock from previous classes, especially the last one. Spock, this is Lt. Carrom."

Carrom had dusty colored skin and faint ridges leading down to his highly arched brows, as if he were one eighth or one sixteenth Cardassian. He made an abbreviated move to offer Spock a hand. Spock bowed his head and the lieutenant dropped his hands at his sides.

"I'm giving you Spock as a project partner, Carrom. I'm confident you two will complement each other well. Now get out of my hair."

She turned to deal with other waiting students. Carrom lifted a palm sized padd. His posture spoke of suppressed impatience and frustration. Spock pulled back from sensing him. He'd done it instinctively, and should not have found it necessary.

"We need meeting times. Let's set up three regular ones so we can be sure of always making two a week."

Spock didn't think that boded well, but he nodded. "I am at your disposal, sir."

Carrom raised his dark gray-green eyes, seemed to take a moment adjusting his thinking. "Right. No preferences? Weekends better?"

"I have personal commitments and my human classmates seem to use the remaining time to catch up, and my schedule is unpredictable as a result."

"Fridays then."

"Those tend to be open. Yes, sir."

"And Tuesday and Thursday evenings when we can. There's a cafe and work area below this floor. We'll meet there. Look the assignment over before tomorrow. Okay?"

Spock almost said, "of course." He nodded. He wondered if Chanel had assigned Carrom as his partner because he also appeared to be a hybrid. Spock had too little data, and put the supposition aside.

* * *

Vice Admiral Justin took his time turning his attention to the cadet nervously curling his toes inside his Starfleet-issue boots. He shifted a holoframe on his desk. It showed a teenaged girl burying half of her face in a collie's mane.

"Cadet," Justin said.

As expected, Jaek stood taller. "Sir."

"If you can inspire so many of your fellows to assist you with such an operation against someone they barely know, I certainly hope that you to step up now and meet my expectations."

Jaek was definitely sweating now. "Yes, sir."

"In case that's not clear enough. This is going to be a test. You demonstrated high potential for leadership, but badly lack the circumspection that should accompany it.

Justin leaned against the desk, relaxed. He let the cadet sweat, let him curl and uncurl his toes inside his heavy boots, setting off little deformations of the synthleather.

"Leaders stand up for their team," Justin said, in the mode of a point of conversation. "You hid behind two of your peers far longer than you should have. Nevertheless, I still harbor hope for you. Understand?"

"They insisted on dealing with the matter, sir. I thought I should listen to their better wisdom, their leadership, you might say."

Justin had waited to cross his arms, did so now. "Yes. I'm sure they did insist. That's why they are now fully out of the way in this matter. And you are here."

Jaek bit his full lips down thin. "Yes, sir."

"This is what I want. I want you to bring everyone involved in this matter to my office at nineteen hundred this evening. We're going to stop doling out so much punishment to every senior cadet and concentrate it where it belongs. Understood?"

Jaek blinked rapidly as he processed that. Not a good sign. "Yes, sir."

* * *

Vice Admiral Justin peered around the forty some odd cadets in his outer office and at the at least ten more visible in the wide doorway and corridor outside.

"Is this how you are going to play it, Cadet?" Justin said to Cadet Jaek standing slightly apart in the middle of the room.

Jaek flushed red, stood straighter.

Justin turned to his staff. "Arrange an auditorium. The old public one across the hall will do." He strode to his inner office without a glance back.

Spock didn't move from where he stood beside the guest chairs. The door slid closed. Justin made a face of dismay that revealed more than Spock would have expected him to.

"He's snowballing me," Justin said. He looked around his desk, opened a drawer, took out a lime green palm phaser and pocketed it. He looked around the desk another time in absent thought, looked up at Spock.

"Wait until everyone's seated to join us. I want you to observe, but out of the way. And I'll signal you when to return here before I release the group. Understand?"

"Yes, sir."

Justin started across the office and stopped. His shoulders relaxed from aggressively forward to normal. "How are you doing, Cadet?" He held up a hand. "I need you to be open and honest with me. I spent half an hour yesterday convincing the cadets who accuse you of a psychic attack that all they experienced was what they were causing you to experience. I got a lot of crazy versions of the things and insistence that couldn't be the case. But it occurred to me since then that they might be exaggerating less than I originally assumed and I should be looking elsewhere for the actual issue. And that would lie with you."

"I am deeply regretful that I caused harm."

"I don't think you caused any real harm. And you are dodging my query."

"If I may, Admiral. Your statement strongly implies that I did cause harm."

Justin sighed, paused. "Let's back up. Be honest with me. That's an order. How are you doing, Cadet?"

Spock latched his hands behind his back. "Overall well. I have. Moments of uncertainty."

"By uncertainty, you mean you don't feel safe."

Spock leveled his chin. "These reactions are not logical and are entirely my responsibility."

Justin nodded to himself. "It always goes this way. A bunch take too little responsibility and a few take far too much. This institution is in no position to dictate your care. I contacted your father to consult with him and he assured me you were already under care, both human and Vulcan. Is that working for you?"

Spock fixed his eyes on a shelf of abstract rock carvings, remembered Overlander's hug. "At this time I am more cared for than I care to be, Admiral."

As Spock hoped, Justin smiled. "I'm trusting you on this. I don't have much to offer you except a reasonably safe place to learn to be an officer. Which I will deliver on. If humanly possible."

"I understand that you have numerous conflicting priorities, sir."

Justin faintly shook his head. "We're going to keep you around, Cadet. If it kills us. Give me four minutes to get things settled before you follow."

The auditorium contained far more cadets than expected if it was intended to be only those involved. Spock slipped fully inside, remained in the darkened, curved vestibule at the rear. The auditorium smelled of aging materials. The seats were worn and the lighting harsh.

Grange was down on the dais beside Vice Admiral Justin, palm padd in hand. "I register sixty one present."

Justin put a hand up to shade his eyes. "Come down here, Mr. Jaek."

Jaek had been standing in the left aisle ten meters from the bottom. He came forward and up onto the dais.

Justin looked out over the auditorium as he spoke. "Although I find a grudging respect for your ability to convince this many to put their careers at risk for you . . . it's not going to work. I'm going to call your bluff. Everyone here is putting themself forth as having been involved. So be it. Everyone here is now on academic, behavioral, and duty probation. One misstep out of any of you for the rest of the term and you are in front of a panel reviewing your right to be here. Understood?"

The room fell unusually silent for so many bodies.

Justin turned to Grange. "At least we can pull the four am muster for the entire senior class. Everyone present is still due on the plaza for supplemental physical training and will be for the rest of the term. I hope everyone here understands why you are being forced to adapt yourselves to additional discipline. Mr. Jaek, I certainly hope you've been thinking hard about things. Care to explain exactly what went wrong so we're all on the same page?"

Jaek stood at attention a few meters to the side, looking nowhere in particular. "We should not have utilized overwhelming force on a fellow student. We should have. . ." He winced ever so faintly. "We should have admitted defeat and aborted the mission."

Justin stood with face set. "You didn't back off when you should have."

"No sir." Jaek stood perfectly still. "There was a further error. Ignoring the procedures for a downed comrade. Once the stunner was utilized appropriate care should have been administered. Warmth, fresh air. Verify airway's clear."

"And why didn't that happen?"

Jaek rolled his head to the side and back. "Lost control of the purpose of the mission at some point. I honestly think there were too many involved. That made it significantly harder to back down, admit defeat. It became a matter of . . . succeed any way possible. Getting Cadet Spock down seemed like a victory in the heat of the moment. We weren't thinking anymore. The group was too big to think, really. Became reactive."

Justin looked over the crowd. "Anyone here realize at the time that this was a problem?"

A few hands went up.

"Stand up." Justin pointed at the closest cadet. "And what did you do as a consequence of this knowledge?"

The cadet shook her blonde head. "Nothing, sir. Just thought about it at the time. Seemed out of line—"

"Louder for me. The only part that matters. What did you do?"

"Nothing. Sir."

"Sit down. You're no different than the rest. For the record, your thoughts are valueless if they require action and you don't take it."

Justin paced once between Grange and Jaek, came back to the center of the dais. "We give you room to learn here. We provide space for you to make mistakes while you figure out what power is, what leadership is. This space we provide is an age-old one. In the spirit of that, I'm going to revive some other old traditions that we have lost. Every dinner all of you present here now will stand while the others eat. And you will recite a procedure or code or specification or emergency manual section, whatever was assigned for that day. For twenty minutes straight, from memory."

Heads tipped back, groans sounded.

"With so many reciting, it will be easier than you think." Justin turned to Jaek. "Mr. Jaek. You were the leader of this mission. I want to know who stunned Cadet Spock."

Jaek stared straight ahead. The harsh light cast half his face into deep shadow. "As the leader, I'm responsible for everything that happened, sir."

"Do you have a backup career plan, Mr. Jaek?"

The high color drained from Jaek's face. His mouth worked. "Yes, sir. I can work for my aunt's company. Building ships."

"You make that sound unpleasant, Cadet."

"I. It was just an idea. Sir."

Justin took out the phaser and held it up. It shone with glaring lime light. "Anyone want to step up and save Mr. Jaek?" He waited fifteen seconds before pocketing the phaser again.

"One more tradition then, which will continue until someone steps up." He nodded at Grange who gestured to someone else.

Staff came onto the dais with stools and plastic.

"Hold up just a second, though. There are too many of you. This many and we'll start a fashion rather than create the scarlet mark I intend this to be. There are twenty six of you, I estimate, that are actually involved. Stand up those of you who convinced someone to be here who should not be here."

No one moved.

"You are a shy bunch. I don't know how you qualified to be here with this serious lack of personal assertion." He pointed at the blonde woman who had stood up earlier. "Name, Cadet?

She stood slowly. "Holloway, sir."

"Holloway, you get the honor of being first and redeeming your colleagues. You bring someone?"

"Yes, sir."

The woman behind her stood up. "Cadet Smyth, sir." She managed to squeak this out only after clearing her throat twice.

"Smyth, you are exempt from this particular punishment, but not the rest. We will see you at dawn muster and dinner recitation. You are dismissed."

"Holloway, come up here. We know you were there by your own admission, so you can be first. Cadet Jaek's hair is too short to make a point."

Holloway stopped on the steps up to the dais, hesitated. Plastic was being draped over the stool.

"Oh my God," Holloway said.

She moved mechanically across the stage, dropped onto the stool, arms lifeless. Staff put a plastic barber's wrap around her and hooked it under her chin.

She closed her eyes. "Oh my God," she repeated, ducking her head between her shoulders suddenly as the razor buzzed.

Staff unhooked her flowing shoulder length hair from a sparkling clip and pushed her head forward to start trimming at the neck.

Justin stepped over to watch. "What's that, a centimeter? Leave a little extra on the top. A reminder of what they've lost and to make the oldest of us feel nostalgic."

Holloway bowed her head farther over, made a high pitched noise of dismay.

"Your actions left your fellow cadet with a mechanized drain in his head. Your hair will grow back, some time next term when we allow it to."

Jaek was directed to another stool and the sides of his already short afro were buzzed shorter. In the front row his friend, Horton, was rubbing his bald head and laughing and pointing at him.

Spock stepped out from behind the curved wall and into the light. Justin looked up and nodded at him. Spock took that as confirmation to return to the administrative offices.

Justin said to the assembled, "Let's continue with the others of you who knew better at the time but did nothing. You each get one pass for a friend you roped into this as part of a disappointingly long string of bad judgement."

— 8888 —  
A/N: I have terrible internet right now. 2. English really needs the word themself so I'm going to claim that 200 years from now we do have that word. It's used in speech anyway, so I'm not exactly claiming we have it now.


	34. Uniform Plan

Chapter 34 - Uniform Plan

Spock stood by a niche in the wall of the Superintendent's office that sat below a natural light tunnel in the ceiling. It held the office's single plant, a blue spiked yucca crossbreed sporting tiny curved white thorns along its edges in perfectly spaced lines.

Back in the auditorium, the Vice Admiral in charge of the Academy was overseeing the drastic shortening of student hair. These events were so far outside Spock's expertise that he could not justify an opinion on Justin's actions. And he did not have Kirk's assistance right now. Spock's last message was still unanswered. Spock had emotionally given in seventy six hours and five minutes ago, and had not received a response to that message. Unlike the others he'd sent, the lack of reply left him adrift. Kirk had mentioned nearly every message that he would be on the move soon without warning.

Spock dearly needed Kirk's reaction, even though Kirk had seemed loathe to second guess Justin's authority in previous messages. Spock may have to seek out another opinion, perhaps Captain Chanel, who was more familiar with the workings of the Academy than Overlander. She may also be helpful in estimating how long Kirk would be out of contact. Spock centered his mind, did not check for a message, did not allow himself to wonder, yet again, if Kirk had been able to read Spock's message, even if he couldn't respond.

The door swished open. It wasn't Vice Admiral Justin. It was Jaek. He stopped in the opening, preventing the door from closing.

"I was told to wait here," Jaek said. He glanced behind him and came inside, remained near the door.

After a minute, he sniffed, made his way to a chair and sat down. After another half minute, he bent forward and violently scrubbed the back of his neck while grimacing. His hair was only marginally shorter but his face appeared larger. He glanced back at the door as if hearing something Spock had not. He slouched and sighed.

"You going to recover okay?" Jaek asked.

Spock wasn't certain how to answer. He'd put every effort into appearing completely recovered.

"Come on. You aren't the same. You think you are?" Jaek frowned, looked away. "What'd the docs say, then?" He projected more emotional upset than the situation justified.

Spock relaxed his shielding. Jaek's body felt keyed up, but the energies were internally focused. "I do not have a formal prognosis."

Jaek stared at him. "No? Oh."

"There are complications to my care that I do not care to expound upon."

"I get it." Jaek dropped his hands between his knees and slouched more. "You don't want to be part human right now. That's fine." He vigorously rubbed his neck again. "Look. I'm am sorry about what happened." Jaek said. "It didn't go right and I didn't deal properly with it going wrong. And I could have." He shook his head. "Easily. I could have taken on everyone's disappointment, the ribbing, probably even been the next target. That failure's on me, dodging that. No one else's fault."

Spock put his hands behind his back. "I acknowledge your expression of regret."

This brought Jaek's attention fully onto Spock. His eyes were coffee brown, lashes thick under a strong rounded brow ridge. His eyebrows were oddly lithe, as if shaped by trimming. He looked at Spock for a time. "We didn't mean to hurt you. That would be stupid. We were just trying to make a point." He looked away, gestured at the admiral's desk. "You're really good. Smart. You're ridiculously smart. You can't just be that good and not get attention. That's not how it works." He appeared saddened, energies turning inward. "We're supposed to be a team."

He rose up from a slouch. "Look. I really am sorry you got hurt. You weren't supposed to. I saw your parents at the hospital and somehow . . . I don't know. That was a shock for some reason. Like, of course you have parents who'd be freaking out, just like anyone else. I hadn't even thought at the time of the consequences of not backing down and letting the plan fail. I see that now. But you were asking to be brought down to a normal level. Don't you realize that?"

"I did not consider myself responsible for your pride."

"Yeah. You don't get it." Jaek rubbed his neck again, ran a finger under his collar and flicked his fingers away. "It's probably nothing to me now, but really. You want to be part of this, or not?"

"Should my companion and I have given in to being humiliated? Done so willingly? Do I need to engage in instigating such cruel behavior when it is my turn?"

"You're so so far away." Jaek shook his head, slouched again and looked at the desk.

"Explain, please."

Jaek tossed his hands. "It's not one thing. You want a formula, or something? There isn't one. Give that up." Jaek huffed in annoyance and turned in his chair to face Spock. "How'd you learn to be Vulcan?"

"I grew up Vulcan."

Jaek made a face. "Right. There was a process you got stuck in the middle of, right? You didn't ride above it all, you were stuck in it, right? This place is where you learn to be Starfleet. Okay? Understand?"

"When I was on a ship, I estimated that I fit in, without such initiation."

Jaek blinked rapidly. "Okay. Why did you feel that way?"

"There was a great deal to accomplish just to survive the next battle, to hold the ship together to return safely."

Jaek held up a hand, dropped it. "Exactly. That's how you build a team that's bound forever. You see an enemy here at Starfleet Academy?"

"No"

Jaek circled his hand as if to encourage more.

Spock said, "Some of the course material is quite difficult and we are forced to work in teams, but everyone here is more than equal to it or they would not have been admitted. But, the course material is not an enemy or a dangerous environment."

Jaek held his hand out as if offering something. "You're almost there."

"The students serve as their own enemy. Is that your thesis?"

Jaek pointed at Spock. "Right. We are, here, in this business against ourselves. Humans are always their own most effective enemy, so I'm told. Maybe Vulcans aren't."

Spock felt annoyed rather than informed. "I will consider what you are asserting. It seems better to use real situations, or simulations, to provide the proper impetuous for group bonding."

"They do that too. You'll see." Jaek lifted his chin. "You don't think it works, this interclass rivalry with the pressure of some kind of real consequences?"

Spock huffed, bit his lips. "I do sense I am bound more to the others in my year due to the ongoing actions of the other classes. I do not necessarily agree this is the best method of achieving this outcome."

Jaek shrugged. "I don't think it's my problem anymore, anyway."

They sat in silence until the door opened and Lt. Grange strode in. He looked between them, at Spock standing with hands clasped behind his back and Jaek, slouched in a chair, legs apart. Jaek pulled himself upright, knees together, became distant.

"Admiral Justin was delayed." Grange walked to the desk, leaned against the front of it.

Jaek shrugged. "I'm in no in hurry for the ax to fall." He gestured at Spock. "And he lives for boredom. Goes somewhere inside his head more interesting than here."

Grange kept his gaze pinned on Jaek, didn't respond.

"Still shaving heads?" Jaek asked.

"Finished."

Jaek smiled. "Hopefully someone starts a rumor it was due to a Rigellian fleshflea infestation. That'd be funny."

After six minutes, Vice Admiral Justin strode in, hard soles beating across the floor. "Thank you, Lieutenant."

Grange took a step, paused, frowned. "Sir." He went out.

Justin took a seat at his desk, pulled himself under it. "Your backup career plan, Mr. Jaek. You ready to depart for it?"

Spock felt Jaek's flesh lose tension even from halfway across the room. "No."

Justin looked up. "No? You asked this office last year to intervene with Captain Chanel to get her to accept you into her class. Seems like we're doing you a favor letting you get to shipbuilding full time."

Jaek lost the last of his rigid posture. "I actually. Can't stand the thought of it."

"Really?"

Jaek tipped his head to the side and held it there, shrugged. "I have to be good enough at it to validly walk away from it. And I want to get as far from it as possible. I want to take ships out. Break them, not make them."

This did not appear to surprise Justin. "What are you going to do?"

Jaek closed his eyes. "I don't know. I haven't mentioned any of this to my family. It's going to be tough to explain all at once."

Justin watched him for half a minute. He lifted his chin to address Spock where he stood off to the side. "Cadet. You've impressed me in the past with your ability to remain a step ahead of me. Why don't you tell Cadet Jaek what I plan to do?"

Jaek pulled up short at this. Stared at Justin, then Spock.

Spock's left brow twitched. He considered what was logical. "You wish Mr. Jaek to remain but only with strict and difficult conditions applied."

Jaek turned to the admiral. "Is that right?"

"It is. Care to explain why, Mr. Spock, since Mr. Jaek has not surmised?"

"The admiral is, presumably, pleased with your behavior over the fourteen minutes he arranged for you and I to be alone together."

"Did you know that ahead of time?" Jaek asked Spock.

"It was only a low likelihood in my mind. Although there was no reason to shave your hair if the Admiral had not intended for you to remain at this institution."

Jaek rubbed his head, sat up straighter. "I'll do anything to stay." This came out low and desperate. Spock considered that this difficult emotion must have been present the whole time, but properly buried.

Justin said, "Two conditions. One, I don't want to see Cadet Spock being asked to so much as fetch a donut for a senior cadet. You aren't responsible for controlling the second years, but your leadership skills should be more than equal to setting that standard for your peers' behavior regarding him. Anything befalls him, I'm coming down on them and you, even if you were on the moon at the time."

Jaek was leaning forward. "Okay."

"Don't be overeager. The second stipulation is the one that really counts. You have until the end of term to get Mr. Horton to resign his place at this institution."

Jaek's shoulders fell, slowly, a few millimeters at a time. His mouth opened and remained there. "I have to get Hortie to quit?"

"Yes. It saves the Academy a very public hearing to remove him. I know he will put up a fight, and while I, personally, am certain it was he who used the stunner, proving that is another matter. And the process of proving it will take down Horton's fellows like Cadet Holloway and the others who he can argue were complicit, but who I know are redeemable. I do not deem Mr. Horton to be redeemable. I have his full record, not just the parts he knows I'm allowed to have. He was admitted on the personal request of Captain Klein, a family friend. A move I failed to block as our Captains generally get one or two recommendations through before we judge whether they deserver more. Mr. Horton was given his chance. And now he's burned that chance."

"What's in his record?" Jaek said.

"That will have to come from him. Personally, I'd not ask him if I were you. It is a distraction and will put him on alert as to your motives. You have a difficult enough job as it is getting him to file an L-140."

"I don't know how I'm going to manage that. He likes it here. He's my friend."

"Consider it a senior project in advanced leadership. Pass-Fail. If he is still with us, you will not be and I will hold hearings at that time to hold him accountable and accept the fallout. Understood?"

Jaek wilted, looked around the room as if for something written out that might help. "I . . ." He straightened, but his voice was bereft. "Yes, sir." He shifted forward in the chair, remained slouched.

"You're dismissed."

Jaek slid off the chair and pushed to his feet, glanced at Spock with the same lost expression, departed. The door slid closed.

"Do you have unaddressed concerns, Cadet?" Justin sounded easy going again.

"No, sir."

"I like to have full range of administrative movement, so I'm grateful your father didn't start anything. He even fed the press a comment I couldn't have gotten away with, completely on his own. Did you see it?"

"I do not follow those particular feeds, Admiral."

"He said 'Space is dangerous and it was only logical the training should be as well.' And he was confident that you as well as any Vulcan were more than equal to it, that the events were incidental, and that was his full statement regarding it. If you get a chance, thank him for me since I can't. I don't expect that's what he really thinks. He was buying you space to make your own decisions, and provided me with the same, probably unintentionally."

"My father and I have not spoken of the incident in many days."

"I spoke to him two days ago. Asked if he was certain he didn't need anything from us, and he reiterated that he was leaving it up to you to decide what was needed. So, I'll tell you what I intend to do. After the thirty or so cadets we shaved today are properly exhausted and made malleable by two more weeks of extra duty, they are going through additional training: reactive empathy, behavioral resiliency experiences, that sort of thing. Then they are on the hook to take on groups of their peers through the same units during final term."

Justin knitted his hands together on the desk. "This is something we've considered doing in the past, but haven't. With good reason. It unfortunately doesn't prepare them well to be back on the bottom of the heap again in their first assignment. It makes them expect too much out of those above them and makes it harder for them to transition into an unfamiliar crew. But maybe, just maybe, they'll be better when they do move up and new cadets arrive under them having been through the same training. It will take time to know if it's effective. But we're going to give it a try. I feel like there's something for us to learn, one way or the other."

"I see, sir."

Justin sat back, lips pursed. "I want you to be as pleased to be here as I am to have you here."

"I am learning, sir. And I am pleased to be here."

Justin nodded with an official air, as if they understood each other. "Let Lt. Grange know if you need anything, okay?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good luck, Cadet."

* * *

Pools of light fell around the clusters of chairs and table in the basement of the Starfleet Annex. Lt. Carrom sat crookedly in a low, soft chair, hunched over devices arrayed on the armrest.

He looked up at Spock. "Cadet." Without moving, he added in friendly invitation, "Sit down."

Spock pulled over an upright chair and placed his padd before him on the unusually low table.

"You get a chance to glance at the assignment specs yet?"

"Yes, sir." Spock had read entirely through them.

Carrom sat up with a groan. "That's right, you don't need much sleep. I remember you said. I installed the model on a system much faster than the one provided for class. But I couldn't get you credentials on it. It's a computer in my temporary department, unfortunately."

"I have the model installed here."

"On that padd?"

"Yes, sir." Spock had upgraded the memory on his padd to a newer crystal array that used hashed three dimensional addressing. He longed to discuss the technical details of this, but held back, uncertain if the lieutenant would be interested. And as part of meshing better with others, assuming no seemed logical.

Carrom took the padd. Spock had the assignment model on the screen: an imaginary vessel in the Hercules class with a compressed vertical profile and fat engine nacelles. Carrom swiped at it and the model spun and cross sectioned, displayed hazy alternative layers accessible with more gestures.

"Look at that. No wonder this padd is such a brick. I've never seen one quite like it. Or heard of the brand." He tipped it edge on. "Looks like you took it into the field."

"I have opened it a number of times."

Carrom smiled as if this might be charming. Spock did not see how that could be amusing, let alone in that way.

Spock said, "The project instructions stated that we are allowed to interleave multiple model runs in the report as long as we document the critical points between them."

"Project groups often don't share a single live model space anyway. They fork to work on certain areas and fold back into the main model as larger fixed systems. Otherwise the interacting details will kill you."

Carrom picked up one of the devices on the arm of the chair and stared at it for half a minute. He put it back down and sighed. "Family are getting even for my scheduling something on a Friday." He leaned forward over Spock's padd. "Let's divvy up tasks for next week and get on with things."

Half an hour later, with 3D hierarchical lists in time code exploding on the screen, Carrom said, "You're taking on too much for Tuesday."

"It is an acceptable amount of work for me."

"It has to stay balanced though. And I have a job. And a family. This is your job."

"If I may, sir, my required first year courses and tasks are my job. This is in addition to that."

"Even worse, then, to load you up." He stretched his neck back. Spock sensed emotional straining along side the muscular. Carrom touched the screen, pulled on the timeline. "I'm going to set this for Thursday, in fact, and we'll let it settle the dependencies for Tuesday on its own." He let go of the timeline and the bubbles reorganized. "That's a lot of progress for less than a week, trust me."

He turned again to a device on the armrest. A young face with glistening brown hair had appeared, lit from below. It spoke silently, overly expressive.

Spock pulled his padd back to himself and pulled up the relevant change orders for the first item on the list. It was a coolant routing change that caused enormous headaches and excessive run lengths. He cut the system into two independent ones and optimized the routing to take advantage of the shorter runs.

"They won't allow the additional plant necessary for that," Carrom said when his attention returned.

"An exception was made for pressure pumped liquids on the upgrades to both the Ulster and the Jupiter IV just this month."

Carrom still held his small device up. He stared at Spock past it. "You know that sort of trivia?"

"I indexed and built a knowledge net of the specifications, drawings, build reports, requisition stock lists, and engineering notes for every vessel constructed for Starfleet in the last two years. I then hooked it into the design model by—"

"You have that? Let me see that."

"I did not have proper access to see any similar official version of such a program to prepare for this class. And I felt badly in need of an overview of the state of the art and what was expected given the mathematical impossibility of completing even a simple design to spec."

Spock pulled up his ad hoc knowledge base over the top of the model and turned it around.

Carrom's center pointed brows lowered but remained just as pointed. "This is a crazy way to look at this data. You have specs and then the coolant pumps linked to a chart of pipe run lengths and the most common valves in the attached systems, across all ships. Why?"

"It made logical sense to me to see it that way. As in nature, knowing creatures use vision is not as useful as knowing all of the mechanisms nature uses to implement vision."

"But you knew right away you could justify the exception for two separate runs because here are the exceptions standing out on the edge of the plot. Engineers would love this but Starfleet would hate it. Look at this. You even have the overruns and delays logged here along with every single note. This is too much information all at once. It's a data multi-tree from hell."

Carrom pushed the padd back to Spock. "Put that change aside for the moment and let's walk through a new one together from the start. We need to document decisions as we go along and I want to make sure we are consistent to avoid rewriting."

When they'd finished a second alteration to the model, Carrom patted his thighs and stood up. He gathered his devices into an antique document pouch. "Tuesday then. Hopefully. I'll message you if I have to cancel. In which case, Thursday."

Spock stood as well. "Yes, sir. See you then."

Spock returned across campus. It was quiet in the first year dormitory. The door to his room slid open revealing P'losiwst sitting at his desk, decorative, gem accented slippers up on the bunk. She had a bottle in her hand and the room smelled of ethyl alcohol vapors.

Spock raised a brow.

"Hello." She grinned, antenna straight up. "I needed to test if anyone in administration would notice if I used your room code." She put her feet down. "It wasn't that hard to get it. But that's only because you don't have a roommate. And the system thinks you should."

Spock put his things aside and sat on the bunk. "This test is in service of something?"

"Oh, don't get ideas." She held up her powder blue palms. "I know you're taken. I needed to see if there would be fallout over the next few days and since you would be okay with me coming in, and I could come up with a personal excuse that'd you'd back me up on . . . " She picked up the bottle and held it out. "Want a sip? Go on."

Spock accepted the bottle and took a gulp on the logic that a fellow cadet expected it and it would do him no measurable harm.

"I should have brought two bottles." She held her hand out and hugged the bottle without drinking from it. "I'm going to need your help. Not sure if you are going to be willing. It involves using access I suspect you have working for Lt. Grange in Student Services."

She waited. Spock nodded that she should continue. She held out the bottle with a sudden jab of her arm. "Have more."

Spock took another sip. Vapors rose into his sinuses and stung. He must have inhaled on a different timing relative to drinking. He would have to experiment with that with the next swallow.

"So." She gestured with a finger. "End of Term there is a huge parade grounds event. All the classes, some brass who can't get out of it. Parents. Active duty. Some old geezer retirees. Pretty big deal. They can't wait a whole year to pat everyone on the head, basically. It's always humid as the swamps of Geigen. And with any luck it will rain, or at least mist. Really hoping for rain."

She took a drink, hugged the bottle. "I am going to, very meticulously and with great precision, replace the dress uniforms of a few select students, whom you might happen to know, with a variety woven from the finest algae-sugar based fibers. I need, one . . ." She held up a finger. " . . . access to rooms to get to at the uniforms, and two, access to the scans off the Stores' computer for exact sizing. When I swap I'll adjust for any flaws in the originals. I'm hoping since no one wears these garments unless forced to, that they will be impeccable. I've lined up one company to make the right color and texture of fiber, another to weave it into the five fabrics that make up a Starfleet Dress Uniform, and another to cut and sew the garments and deliver them on time, each sealed with a separate humidity regulator. I just need to get into the right rooms to hang them up in the days before the end of term review."

She paused to swig from the bottle. Her motions seemed acted out, as if she were copying something she'd seen before.

"That fiber will dissolve easily once exposed to water, I am estimating," Spock said.

"Sweat will do it. But it will take longer than it would with rain or high humidity. I don't think I can replace skivvies, unfortunately, but a lot of guys skip the underoos to make the lines of the uniform look better. I know that since I, you know, notice that kind of thing." She took a swallow, daintily tapped her lips with her fingers. "The brass always go on and on at these things. Standing there in formation . . . Sweat will do it. And no one, under threat of a black mark that is never removed, ever, is allowed to move out of ranks." She snorted.

Spock raised a brow again.

She handed him the bottle. He took a gulp, estimated from the depression on his mental acuity that his blood alcohol level was rising. He must have changed his expression because P'losiwst giggled.

"Not only are they not allowed to move, being out of uniform on review is by itself a serious demerit. Imperfect uniform maintenance. Inadequate presentation." She spoke with a happy chirp. "It's almost like Starfleet was run by me." She pointed at her own chest. "Dress for success or get out."

The bottle was nearly empty. Spock said, "I will look through the systems I have access to."

"Carefully."

Spock nodded. "I have no other mode."


	35. Certain Consideration

Chapter 35 - Certain Consideration

Spock stepped into the shadow thrown by the overhang of Shutan's house. Spock wore Vulcan robes today, of a type fit for the desert. He had beamed in three kilometers away and walked, pleased with the bright comfort of the open space, the chance to find a rhythm in regular healthy movement. Sarek had delayed restarting Spock's tutoring sessions over Spock's protests that his tutor was rigorous enough to expect him back. And now, from the threshold, Shutan peered down at Spock without giving any hint as to his thoughts. After a full minute, he stepped back to let Spock come inside.

"Sit," Shutan commanded and went off along the length of the house.

Spock took a soft seat and watched dust swirls traversing the low wall around the property.

Shutan returned holding a narrow wooden tray which he placed on the unexpectedly empty table. He sat and, with careful movements, arranged and poured from one stone pot to the next, finally into a low, broad cup which he held out for Spock. The cup swirled with blue flecks. The scent of cool morning Vulcan hills wafted from it. He waited for Spock to sip before pouring a second one and sitting with it balanced on one gnarled palm.

They sat with the wind scuffing along the full-height windows. The warm liquid and the methodic noise made Spock lethargic.

"The shoulder drape is for you, if you require it."

A neatly folded half circle-shaped Vulcan blanket in deep green and gray was hanging over the side of Spock's seat. It was mid-morning and the rooms were still chilled from the night before. Spock, still not in full control of his body had sweated on his walk and now he dearly missed his wicking thermal shirt. But he resisted taking up the blanket.

Shutan considered Spock for a time, three and a half minutes. "If you are ready to begin."

"I am."

"If you wish for a break, you will let me know. Of course. Or if you require anything else at all."

Spock's left brow went up before he could stop it.

Shutan said, "I am of an era where there was proper social protocol for one in your condition." He poured Spock more tea, pushed it closer. "It is perhaps out of fashion to take certain cares around one recovering from such an injury. I do not know. It has certainly been a long time since I dwelt on Vulcan. But it is proper. Nevertheless."

Spock nodded, tried not to lean too far over the rising heat from his mug. The sides of his robes were damp and chilling. He ignored it and sat straighter.

"What did you think of the Bradbury?" Shutan said.

Spock stared at the band of the sunlight beyond the house's overhang, wished the sun had already slid around the sky so it could reach inside.

"I did not find it a coherent whole of a narrative, theme or even attitude. Should I have?"

"I do not think so. And I did not intend when I assigned it for its warning about human behavior in the quest for exploration to ring quite so true for you."

Spock set his cup down and immediately missed its heat. He wanted to meet Shutan's gaze, but stared at the low stone cup instead. "I have in the past been treated to pride damaging mockery and forceful persuasion by my peers on Vulcan."

Shutan's voice wavered from age. "That which is strange begets violence in those not yet settled in their own minds about their own strengths and weaknesses. It is true that I should not discount what Vulcan children are capable of in the same situation. You will continue on, then, at the earth space academy?"

"I still expect to make a place for myself. I am still learning how to accomplish this, perhaps will always be learning this." And because he was facing Shutan and not some other elderly Vulcan, Spock added, "Better than I could on Vulcan."

"Only you can decide that. As only you must live with the consequences. Which story in the Chronicles pleased you the most? Assuming one did."

"The one involving the temporal interstice. Where the two individuals meet as equals across the span of time and cultures, both characters strong and comfortable within their worlds."

"That one does not really fit in with the rest, does it?"

"It had a positive outlook. Unlike the others."

"But as optimistic as it was," Shutan said. "It was an ephemeral moment, almost a delusional moment, not a solid reality for the reader to rely on for the future."

He looked to Spock and waited.

Spock wasn't trying hard today to be well thought out, and that was making it easier to find things to say. "The mood of that story was one of transience and of inevitability. And at the same time, of capturing pleasure in the moment by already knowing and accepting what place one has in it."

Shutan steepled his rough hands. "It is pessimistic also in its acknowledgement that Good requires time and peace to build. It is always more fragile, vulnerable to an easy tearing down or decay. All thinking beings know this at their core. What do the two beings learn from their encounter? Do they become something better because of it?"

"You are suggesting that what happens after the story ends is more important? I did not get that sense from the piece." Spock shifted, tried to encourage his body to warm itself despite his damp robes pressing, airing, and pressing again yet more chilled.

Shutan sat back. "I am merely curious what you would hypothesize."

"You wish to learn about me through my projection onto these characters?"

Shutan sat without reacting for just over two minutes. "Literature indeed teaches in this manner."

Spock sighed. "I suppose the two characters come away from the meeting with new perspective. Perhaps a humility of attitude toward what they take for granted as special. That you cannot know a place by its ruins, you must experience it." Spock took up his cup and wrapped his hands around it.

Shutan considered him. "It will be more damaging to your pride if I get up and put the shoulder drape on you rather than you taking it up on your own."

Spock put the tea down and unfolded the wrap. He settled back in the seat with it.

"I am old fashioned, Spock. You are due a certain care."

"I am not as weak as a full Vulcan would be in these circumstances."

Shutan sat for a time. "Did you expect to ever say that?"

Spock huddled under the warm comfort of a traditional Vulcan wrap that smelled entirely of earth. "No."

* * *

In the dining hall the masses of cadets moved to and from the dispensers to the tables. They turned sideways to slide around the spread out lines of seniors standing between the middle rows of tables loudly reciting the Starfleet policy on Accidental First Encounters. The seniors stood with chins up, eyes straight ahead. When one or two fell away for a few words, or misremembered, the others were loud enough it was difficult to discern. The remaining cadets ate in silence, waiting for the noise to abate before conversing.

P'Losiwst wore a crooked grin as she sipped her blue drink. Spock slipped a memory chip across the table that contained the Stores measurements of ten students. He'd requested the entire Stores database with the stated intent of updating the semantic browser of student information he'd built at the beginning of the term. No one had questioned his intent and the measurements were just one small part of a very large dataset.

Spock had also looked over the original requirements specifications for the entry system in the dormitories. The original specifications were the only information regarding it that was accessible to him. Each entry and exit was logged and a checksum stored separately. The checksums were not sufficiently lengthy. Spock could compute two other possible combinations of entrance or exit within 24 hours that would match the checksum. One could not be assured of opening a door at precisely that millisecond to fool the system, but with sufficient access, one might be able to forge a change in the data that would appear to be valid. Like the bots he'd programmed for, the door hardware was mass produced and inexpensive and had likely not been updated. Spock intended to disassemble his own door controller to confirm.

The select seniors went on with their recitation. Their voices echoed around the boxy space, combining and recombining. "The incident shall be logged by all parties who directly witness or were participatory to it within twelve hours of a return to station . . ."

P'Losiwst put the chip under her fingertip and pinned it there beside her plate, stared at Spock as if attempting telepathy. Other cadets slid into the adjacent seats, Veeyla and Tuanton. P'Losiwst put on her usual smile and sipped her drink. Nodded greetings went around.

Spock put his plate aside and placed his padd before him, straightened it just so. As always, the ship model was open on it. He stared unseeing at it. He had an alert specifically for messages from Kirk and knew for certain there was no such notice and he need not check his message list. Illogically, he checked the full list anyway and confirmed it. He did not speculate about Kirk's situation. That would be illogic on top of illogic.

Spock scanned the feeds he'd configured for the Lohanna Sector. They consisted of oft-repeated warnings about travel limits for private vessels, sanitized Federation summaries of action, political discussions about who was in the right, if anyone. All of it was too broad to help

The half shouted chanting continued. The policy on Accidental First Encounters was long. The others in the dining hall began talking over the seniors and reverberating voices bounded around Spock, better defining the wall of control he sat within. His own disciplined lack of reaction to Kirk's silence did not feel comforting. It felt binding, imprisoning, as if to be a whole being was to be subject to weaknesses. But that was illogical. Spock breathed in and out, took in the cacophony of food that beat at his sense of smell the same way the voices beat at his hearing.

Spock pulled the ship model back up on his screen, worked on resolving a conflict between an extension of an access tube, the shielding on a high powered conduit intersecting it, and a boosting of the airflow to an adjacent compartment. He estimated it was impossible to resolve without moving a bulkhead, an expensive and likely unacceptable option.

* * *

"There is interference at two o'clock, Commander. Not at eleven where you told me to expect it from. But there's a lot of heavy rock around making it hard to localize."

Kirk held up a hand to call a halt. He heard shuffling boots behind him cascading to a stop. Feet had been dragging for more than two hours, but they were not anywhere Kirk wanted to stop for a long-term break. They were making their way through dry ragged canyons with no good spots for an emergency evac if they had to call one in.

Their unit was still technically waiting for further orders, moving as needed to remain hard to detect, remaining transmission silent. By sending a scout to high ground to use direct line of sight to the skuttles, they'd reported being fired upon and that information would have been passed on to highers up. But no broadcast transmissions with their encoding tag had been received in reply, so they continued on as before, scouting out the area where the firing had originated from. During their pre-mission briefing, it had seemed to Kirk that rebel firepower was always assumed to be mobile, because anything else would be foolish. Organizational assumptions with that much foothold worked at Kirk, like a burr inside his jacket. He may be seeking out this firing origin point just to prove that assumption incorrect.

Kirk turned to locate who was on scanner. Bark scrambled up the loose rocks to reach him. The tech extended the wire arm on the scanner as far as it would go and held it high. Hummer scrambled up, reached over his back, and took it from Bark's hand to hold it higher. Bark rolled his eyes, but adjusted the screen and held it up so he and Kirk could see it.

"Pan back," Kirk said. "That looked like a skuttle."

Bark adjusted the angle. "It's only showing naturally reflected or emitted EM, sir. Looks like sun heated rocks to me."

"There on what is almost a low plateau. You don't think that looks like the corner of a skuttle?"

Uirik came up short of them, leaned her helmeted head between their shoulders. "Planet scan shows clear in that location. I want to agree with Bark."

"I want to divert in closer," Kirk said. "Bark, Hummer, come with me.

Kirk rolled his ankle over a loose rock for the hundredth time that day. The cords up the sides of his knees felt strained, the way he expected them to feel when he turned forty. He should have sent someone else, but he seemed to be the only one seeing things, and he was feeling impatient, which he knew was dangerous.

A rock rolled several meters downslope, cracked against another one. Kirk held up a hand for silence and the three of them picked their way more carefully, walking as if on stilts, making a path out of the smaller scree at the edge of the canyon.

Three kilometers closer in they came to a wide opening in the canyon. Kirk pulled back, halted Hummer with a grab on his arm. He was sure he was seeing artificial constructs among the high rocks, even without enhancement.

They hunkered down and extended the wire eye again.

Hummer flipped up his visor and squinted, nose to the screen. "I've got to agree with you now, sir. What's that next to the skuttle?"

"An upside down ship?" Bark said, halting himself in turning the scanner display over. "Sorry, sir."

"Superimpose the other map."

Bark did so, handed over the display. Kirk studied the circled area where the firing originated from. He'd been angling their route toward a wider ravine that approached the edge of that area. Now the picture looked different. The earlier firing location was chosen to protect that low approach, which in turn was intended to protect something else.

"Let's retreat," Kirk whispered.

"It IS a skuttle?" Uirik said upon their return. She took hold of a display and shaded it with one hand. "A captured skuttle? Nothing's been reported lost for months in this area."

"It is one." Kirk took out a snack bar and chewed it down while the rest adapted to the news. "Send a scout to message our skuttle team. Have them tell base we need more airpower and an air strike, but give us 30 hours before bringing it in." Kirk bundled up the wrapper and pocketed it. He waited for someone to ask for more information.

Bark, emboldened by being selected for the side mission, said, "30 hours for what, sir?"

Kirk reached for the display in Uirik's hand. She hesitated as if not wanting to reward his behavior. He smiled with full shining charm. She gave it up.

"We're going to take out one of what I expect are three guns in total. The one that fired on us I suspect we can't reach without exposing ourselves to lethal fire. They'll be another, however . . ."

Kirk squatted with the display in hand. He was a little shaky adjusting the map display to enhance the geography. If he was right, they'd walked alarmingly close to a second gun emplacement without realizing it.

Kirk zoomed out and in, changed the elevation exaggeration. "Who can tell me about the groups fighting here?"

Kilpea, perhaps the tallest crewmember although he didn't seem it with his soft, adolescent face, raised a gloved hand.

"Go on. Don't be shy," Kirk said.

Kilpea dug a boot toe into the damp sand, rotated it back and forth. His voice was a whisper. "Which group do you want to know about?"

"I want to know about whoever we're likely dealing with here. Who's the most established group fighting for this planet?"

"There are six mercenary groups. Most are ad hoc," Kilpea said, then faded out and his gloved hands fluttered nervously.

"Hm. Not them. Who's actually representing themselves here in this fight?"

Kilpea burst out with: "The Urtics are. I think."

Kirk lowered himself onto his backside and rested his arms on his knees. The others took this as a cue to put weapons down on their butt ends, to slide helmets back on heads.

"Where's home for them?"

"They aren't," Hummer said. "They are fighting for the Valgaro Family, because they owe them from the Sector Wars more than sixty years ago."

"Valgaro? Where are they from?" Kirk asked.

Kilpea said, "F-29983 II. Five systems away."

"That's more like it. Old warrior types I take it if they are calling in a sixty year old favor. Why weren't they in the briefing?"

"The mercenaries are overwhelmingly the primary enemy." Uirik sounded pinched, annoyed.

Kirk looked up and waited until she met his eyes. He stared, silently telling her to stay neutral while he worked. She looked away.

"The professionals are not the enemy today," Kirk said. "Old warrior clan, someone who uses old fashioned thinking about defense and taking territory. Someone methodical."

Kirk raised the map to eye level, pointed at the screen. "There. The emplacement will be there." He pressed the other locations so they were marked and coded, held out the display to Uirik. "Send our climber scout up to tell the skuttles to prepare to bring in airfire 30 hours from now on those locations. And that we'll be firing on the marked locations at launcher range from the other marked locations. With luck we can keep friendly fire to a minimum. Especially given we are the ones on the ground. More airpower will be welcome if they can call it in on time."

Feet shifted, crewmembers looked at each other without raising their heads.

Hummer said, "Sir?"

Kirk smiled at him. He wanted them to do that, to ask for details if they didn't know. Kirk said, "There's an installation there. I'm certain of it. Not a big one, but one nonetheless. It is on top of a small mesa, so it is unlikely it includes any caverns beneath it. It has gone undetected because they are masking scans from altitude. We came in below their eye level, an angle they don't expect approach from and apparently aren't or can't cloak with using the captured equipment they have piled around their encampment."

"The skuttle and the other crashed ship are just for hiding behind." Hummer finally got it. "They don't have their own cloaking tech."

"It might still fly," Kirk said. "But we're going to blow it up before they can put it in the air, so it doesn't matter if it does."


	36. Late

Chapter 36 - Late

Spock had meditated all morning in his dormitory room before traveling to the Vulcan embassy for brunch. He was determined to present to his father a facade of casual control that demonstrated his full recovery from injury.

Spock and Sarek sat in the tea room over steaming mugs of herbal earth tea. The gray, mid-day light leaching in the courtyard windows threatened rain and the stand heater had been placed beside the table as a bulwark against the chilly, stone-framed windows.

"You are unusually circumspect, Spock."

Spock made certain to gave nothing away when he looked up.

Sarek said, "You generally share more willingly regarding your activities."

Spock remained level. "I regret if I seem distracted. It is not the occasion of our luncheon that the cause for my distance. I am pleased to resume our regular meetings."

"I have something to request of you, regarding that."

Spock sat straighter, let his curiosity show.

"Your mother was sorely disappointed that you were unable to come home the evening of your birthday."

Spock breathed in and held it. "I had a project meeting and two practical lab sections on navigation and astronomical mapping."

Sarek did not respond for half a minute. "We accept that you are otherwise occupied, Spock. And while I do not subscribe, as you know, to romanticizing such anniversaries, your mother does."

Sarek said, "I recall you enjoying such celebrations when you were small. I do not recall what brought about your disinclination to marking this day."

Spock considered that it was a combination of things, a regular reminder that he would always be set apart, not matter how much time passed. He did not voice this despite his father waiting for an explanation.

"It is romanticized, as you say," Spock said.

"I have consistently indicated that an exception is to be made."

"The Vulcan way of marking it, through a simple pronouncement in the old language, is superior."

"It is the same, at the core. The human way is edible, is all." Sarek pushed back and stood up. "I must insist you cater to your mother in this."

Spock looked up, wondered what the purpose of the discussion had been. His father should have simply voiced his insistence at the outset. Then Spock wondered why he himself had argued.

Sarek was waiting, looking down at him.

"Of course, Father."

Sarek nodded deeply. Amanda came in, followed by a servant carrying a cake aglow with yellow-orange light. This was placed before Spock. The sixteen candles gave off significant heat for a collection of individual self-sustaining flames. The frosting was not green this year, but a sparking light blue, like snow in moonlight.

"It's starfleet science blue," Amanda said, seemingly reading Spock's thoughts. She put a hand on the back of his chair and the light filled her face.

"I intend to enter engineering," Spock said, then worried he was still being unnecessarily difficult.

"The red frosting Cook made up was positively grim."

"Of course," Spock said.

"Since you're an adult, I won't sing. Go ahead and blow them out. But make a wish."

Spock studied the columns of standing flames. He dearly desired a message from Kirk. Contemplating making a wish at all, especially that one, undid some tenuous bulwark inside Spock, brought his helplessness into stark clarity. He was aware of Sarek's gaze, waiting. One sputtering candle dripped red wax onto the glittering surface where it appeared as clear as water.

Spock blew out the flames. Amanda handed him a silver triangle on a handle, pulled a plate close for him to cut onto.

Human ritual. Kirk would recognize this, would feel comfortable with it, and that buoyed Spock more than was logical.

Amanda took a seat with her piece of cake, made a noise of appreciation of the first bite, thanked the servants and they slipped silently away.

Spock ate a bite because he had no choice.

Sarek tossed his robes forward and resumed his seat. "I am concerned how well you are readapting to your classes."

Spock was happy to talk rather than eat. "My assigned courses remain relatively easy for me, with the exception of the advanced course on ship design. I have been given a large design revision assignment to be completed in conjunction with a Starfleet lieutenant."

"I see." Sarek sipped his tea, clasped his hands before himself, rested them on the edge of the table. "But there is something else."

Spock studied the way his slice of cake stood canted, crushed by passing a fork through it. He breathed in and out, put in place recently learned controls rather than shove his emotions for Kirk aside, an action that felt increasingly disloyal.

"I have not heard from James in nine days and four point six hours." Spock tilted his head. "I have not been able to logically put my concerns for him aside. I admit."

Amanda set her fork down. Her alarmed gaze weakened Spock's control.

"This concern is impacting your studies?" Sarek said.

Spock pushed his shoulders back, felt his face warming. "I cannot one hundred percent put it aside."

Sarek adjusted his interleaved fingers. "I will have to interpret that as the 'yes' that you are unable to express."

Spock stared down past his hands to the shadow under the table. The scent of cake and frosting was taking him back in time to when the pain was solely a yearning for closeness, and a hopelessness that it would remain inaccessible, not a terror of losing what he'd thought impossible. There was a long silence punctuated by the wind on the many sections of window.

Sarek said, "I wish to assist. How can I do so?"

"I am quite certain there is nothing you can impact, father."

"I cannot change events in a distant star system, but I have you here before me and that is where the suffering lies. You may express to me what you will without fear of reproach."

Spock sat forward, a curtailed movement to stand up. Amanda was looking to Sarek with evident surprise.

"I cannot, father."

"Is Zienn aiding you in this difficulty?"

"As long as I can return to control and logic, he believes all is acceptable. He does not comprehend this kind of emotion. Even though he is trying to for his own reasons."

Sarek breathed in, resettled his hands. "You fear losing the companionship of a being who naturally seems a part of you."

Spock held his gaze away. His controls had decayed farther and he could not piece it back together. The scent of the past that was continuing to undo him. He swallowed hard.

"Speak, my son."

Spock shook his head once. "I do not know how I would adjust to such a change. I would lose all purpose."

Sarek's voice dipped low. "Do not imagine that I am incapable of understanding. Even as I insist on logic in thought and action in all things, even this? You would adjust, Spock, more adeptly than you are capable of predicting at the current time. But I know, also, that hearing me say that is more painful still."

Spock turned slightly, looked at Sarek's robes. "I do not know if I am concerned more for myself or for James. I am simply lost at the very premise of having him removed from my life."

Spock looked up when Sarek didn't respond. His father's distant dark gaze pulled Spock from his own concern, chilled him. His father had been unable to save his first wife from his own son. Spock had known about those events, but had never understood them in such clear terms of personal loss and helplessness until now.

Spock straightened in his chair, spoke deliberately. "I cannot impact anything of this situation, except myself."

Sarek raised his chin as if from a revery. "No, you cannot. And James is likely all right, is he not?"

"I cannot compute the odds. There are too many unknowns."

Sarek poured Spock more tea, pushed it closer. "Everything you perceive is temporary. Regret of a missed alternative future is in part the outcome of insufficiently existing in the present."

Spock openly watched his father's face. These were not sentiments he'd ever heard from him. And they spoke to the heart of Spock's shame at his weakness, relieving him of it.

"Thank you, Father."

Sarek nodded deeply. Amanda had her eyes lowered, a sign that she was keeping her emotions to herself to avoid interfering.

"Spock, you are mine and your mother's son. It would be illogical to expect you to be otherwise, even as we expect you to be the best version of it."

Amanda bit her lips and held them, kept her gaze down.

Spock said, "I will try harder to be that."

"It is not effort that is lacking, Spock. It is perspective. Some of which you will gain with time." He gestured at the cake with his chin.

Spock looked down at it, picked up his fork and resumed eating his piece.

\- 8888 -

"If you are through pacing all four corners of my examination room, maybe you'd like to move to the table?" McCoy stood with arms loosely crossed, one arched brow raised.

Overlander, in crisp uniform, stared at the floor, hands on hips. "Yeah."

She lifted her broad frame to sit on the table, adjusted herself there, then slouched. "I thought I was done with you docs for good."

"I can see that."

McCoy waved a scanner in front of her, watched the display on a medicorder. "Well, your machinery shouldn't be an issue with regard to pregnancy, in case you were unaware."

"They said."

"Genetically, though." McCoy shook his head. "I'll need a cell sample at a minimum from you and the hermit priest." He put his things down on a cart, moving methodically, to avoid seeming to rush. "Humans and Vulcans can interbreed, but the pregnancy failure rate might be as high as fifty percent. It's not well tracked due to general Vulcan stubbornness about certain subjects, so I can't give you better numbers. With some gene modification, we can get that number down to twenty-two percent or so. That number we do know, given those couples are in the system."

Overlander's lips twitched, not a smile or a frown. "I don't know if he's going to go for that."

"Will he give up a sample? Have you discussed it?"

Overlander stared far away. "We don't usually discuss difficult things. He just knows what I'm thinking and I try and read the signs of his response. Which are subtle, as you might imagine."

"He's going back to Vulcan at some point," McCoy said.

"That's my understanding."

"Well, I'm old fashioned and it's your life. But your communication doesn't sound all that great anyway."

"Doc. This is the best communication I've ever had. Nothing's hidden. Complete exposure and acceptance, too, because there's no choice." She slouched more. "Acceptance of myself more then him of me. It's crazy what happens when you can't even hide an errant wandering thought that you'd never in a million years say aloud. You have to accept that you think that way. That's who you really are, you know. The things you won't actually say."

McCoy held out a glass swab. "Nah. I always say what I think. Saves the telepathy. Say awwww." He swiped and packaged the sample up. "Well, I'll give you a kit to take. You saw how to use it just now. See if he's willing. Be good to know what the full genetic risk profile looks like, even if there's no chance of an agreement on modification between you." He waited. "Okay?"

"Yeah. Sure." She remained on the table while he put everything away, rolled drawers closed, cleaned his hands.

He rolled a stool over, took his time hitching a hip on it. "Something else? I seem to have time."

"You know Spock a bit, right?"

"I know Spock's innard guts much more than his innard head. But, yes, I guess I'd say I know him."

Overlander looked down at her knees. "I wonder if I'm doing this for the wrong reasons. Selfish reasons. Like loving the idea of having a certain kind of someone around no matter what because they're yours and yours alone and they can't leave. Well, not for a lot of years."

"Lady, if all of humanity worried about that, we wouldn't be here."

There was a delay, but she smiled crookedly. "Still. Humanity has supposedly improved."

"That's a load of bunk. Look. The fact that you're worried about it means it's not really a concern. The ones that can't bring themselves to do even half as much self examination are the ones who should keep it in their trousers."

"Maybe. But thanks. That makes me feel better. I certainly never worried that my parents were just being selfish when they had me."

"Imagine that." He recrossed his arms tighter around his puffed out chest. "Anything else?"

"If we were going to do some gene modification. Would you be willing to do it for us?"

"In consultation with someone else, yes."

"That makes me feel better too. I feel like you'd be straight with me about the pros and cons. Not just trying to build a better kid."

"People are flawed for good reason."

Her brow lowered along with an unwilling smile. "I'll bite. How's that?"

"Sometimes the dreamy optimists have got it right. But then the winds of change come through, and whoosh, the annoying pessimists are the ones that make it through." McCoy gestured with his hand as if sweeping something away. "Sometimes we need careful, sometimes we need carefree. Nature and random fate would play a merry trick on us if we monocropped the galaxy with one kind of person. As tempting as it seems when things are good."

She smiled for real. "I like you, Doc. Sure you don't want a ship? If this doesn't pan out with the kid, I'll be sailing out on a nice, safe refurbed on one as First Officer."

McCoy put his things away. "I'll think about it. I suppose, better a ship with at least one person I can stand."

"And who appreciates you."

"Same difference."

\- 8888 -

The air pressed down on Kirk, breezeless and hot. He was breathing it in too heavily. He closed his mouth to make it less obvious. His chest and lungs strained under his armor to draw enough in through his nose.

He'd sent the gunner teams off, one to target the gun emplacement that he was sure was nearby, the other to target the base. That left six of them here, including himself along with launchers and big guns for each of them.

Kirk chewed the underside of his middle finger at the big knuckle. This was a new habit, maybe because these phaser rifle holsters left him with a callous there.

Ranran shifted his weight from one hip to the other, then fell still again. He was almost as lanky as Kilpea, who leaned back against the rock face, feet spread. He didn't look ready for action, but the waiting had already gone on too long, and Kirk didn't see a benefit in nagging. He would move when needed. They'd all be jolted into it.

Kirk had wanted to fire first, a surprise attack on the small base from close in, then have the air power swoop in. But that would require coordination that might give away the initial surprise. They were waiting for the skuttles to make a flyover, to draw fire. Then they'd add in the ground fire. Almost as good.

Kirk adjusted his grip on the rifle butt. Their team was positioned halfway between the other teams where they could cover the airspace over the others, just in case the base launched something. He didn't want his other teams distracted by their own defense.

The sun glinted off something nearby. Kirk looked up, found Kilpea had fished a necklace up from inside his armor. He put something to his lips and wiggled a bit and dropped it back inside against his skin. If Kirk squinted, Kilpea's activated armor made him appear as a wavering rocky terrain and a disembodied glove and face.

A voice came over Kirk's earpiece. He flipped down his faceplate. It was on broadcast, to mask the intended receiver, so he was not certain the transmission was meant for them. He squinted as he listened. Something was wrong somewhere. He tried to sort out the voices, the shifting code words.

An explosion rumbled, rolled through the canyons. It originated far in the distance and in the direction opposite the enemy base and mark thirty from where Kirk estimated the enemy emplacement to be. An icy sensation crept through Kirk's arms.

The voices were discussing a protective shield and arguing over its coordinates and height. The message was for them. There wasn't going to be a flyover, the scuttles couldn't get through. Despite the base being small and using stolen goods for shielding, Kirk had vastly underestimated their tech.

Kirk's team was looking at him. He stared straight ahead, listening to the voices, waiting for his mind to click forward, for an idea to blossom. They were trapped inside the shield without air support or a pickup, days and days of hiking away from the likely shield edge.

He'd been so aggressive, so focussed on being the predator, that he'd not considered what the situation would look like if such a large factor changed. He wondered what else might he have estimated incorrectly? Suddenly, nothing was to be counted on.

His team had heard the same transmission and were waiting for him. They were no longer shifting foot to foot, but stood stock still with guns aimed low, hands on grips, fingers on safeties. Kirk had to lead, even if he didn't know what was best. He'd told the other teams to rendezvous after the attack or if anything went awry. He'd not been as specific as he should have been regarding the air strike never materializing. He'd not even considered it.

Wing it, Kirk thought. Doing nothing is not an option.

"We'll join the team at the emplacement. I suspect the field generator is there. That's where I'd put it, where it would be defended. We'll leave a message at the rendezvous point." Kirk picked up his backpack. "We need to be very quiet. Move out."


	37. Clubbing

Chapter 37 - Clubbing

Spock didn't remove the panel directly over the door lock in his assigned dormitory room at Starfleet Academy. He instead removed the panel between the door and the long side wall, just above the floor. This larger panel was a generic kickplate that allowed access to the service bundles that entered the room from the conduits below the suspended floor. It was regularly removed by maintenance so unlike the door plate its removal would not constitute evidence of tampering with the door itself.

Spock sat crosslegged before the revealed utility cavity. The wall was 14 centimeters deep and insulated everywhere except here. With the foam-backed plate removed he could hear footsteps and muted conversation from the corridor outside.

He stared, idly tracing colored and tagged pipes and wires. It was oh six hundred seventeen, and the Academy was rising for the day. Spock meditated lightly to force himself to acknowledge that he'd been compelled this morning to hack his dormitory door entry system by his own sense of hurt. There was still no message from Kirk overnight. He was responding to that deep fear of loss by taking something away from the same institution that threatened to take Kirk from him.

Spock stepped through the emotional logic of his actions, acknowledged it to himself, and took up his tricorder. He would have to rig an optical probe wire to study the door latch itself, but he should be able to reach it from this point following along one of the wires. He may have to fetch a few tools from his room at the embassy, but the task of making one would be too easy. He hoped for the sake of distraction that the lock itself was more complicated than expected.

* * *

It wasn't until dinner and the usual noise of the senior recitation that Spock had a chance to speak with P'Losiwst. He didn't want to preserve any evidence in messages, even coded ones, as she had suggested doing.

"I have a thought about access to rooms," Spock said. He was bending over his plate, seeming to study the food fabricator's idea of Vulcan Kit'op, a pressed and fermented concoction of wild seeds. The fabricator had mimicked everything but the scent and even though it smelled more pleasant than the real thing, Spock was uncertain about tasting it.

P'Losiwst wiped her fingers on her napkin. "Yeah?"

"Every access must be independent from the others and must not repeat any method of entry."

Her antenna dipped low. "That's harder. Won't be able to do more than, what, three or four rooms?"

"Possibly. I agree it will reduce total count."

She began mixing together the foods on her plate with the spoon she held, a sign that she was not going to eat more. "I don't like that. Let me think about it."

"It has the advantage of not attracting as much investigation." Spock considered Vice Admiral Justin's repeated observations that Spock was closely in tune with his thinking. "The investigation would be relentless if it were as many students as you are planning for."

The seniors concluded their reciting of Basic Station Docking Procedures and the general chatter in the hall rose to fill the space.

"I guess I do want to stay on here. After. Okay. You're right. I don't really want to scale it back, but for now, I agree with you."

"I have observed that you have difficulty letting go of projects once launched. Even if they are in difficulty."

"That's how I get shit done." Her antenna bent backwards which Spock took as a sign of anger.

"That is very much like James," Spock said and returned to eating.

Her antenna lifted straight again, but she continued to appear emotionally down, inward. "I need to go out tonight. Club. Drinking. Please say you are game."

"I have a project meeting with Lt. Carrom at twenty hundred. But I will be available after that."

"Good." She pushed her tray away. "You didn't hear from Commander Kirk today?"

Spock shook his head as faintly as he could.

"You may need to drink even more than me."

"A testable hypothesis."

* * *

Spock sat in a pool of light in the basement of the Annex. He was grateful for the endless difficult tasks placed before him, the immersive models on the screen and the counters displaying his progress through the tasks. He wanted no room in his mind for pointless supposition about Kirk.

Carrom juggled three devices, as usual. Put them all down in a neat row for the eleventh time, then stretched his back. "My family's not happy about us having a meeting scheduled on Friday."

Spock was rebundling signals and wiring to the bridge consoles using different vendor products to see how the simulations adjusted. There were no fewer than six bus standards being supported. His patience for the illogic of this was quite short. "I see, sir."

"My wife wants me to invite you to dinner and we can do some work after."

This was in the personal domain, or partly so. Spock shuttered the model on his display and raised his head, sat straighter. He felt ghostly habits of his childhood filling his arms, his spine, reminding him that he was a diplomat's son.

"I'd be honored, sir."

Carrom's face grew wryly amused. "Don't take it too seriously. Just Friday pizza and chikorn sticks in ranch dip or whatever the kids are demanding this week."

"Nevertheless, sir."

Carrom patted his chair arms. "Well, maybe we can pack it in tonight then."

Spock had already closed out the model. He took up his padd and stood. They were making far less progress now on the project per time input. The required changes seemed custom designed to overlap and conflict the more of them were attempted, more like a chess match against the creator of the assignment than an intellectual puzzle on its own.

Spock almost lifted his padd to check his messages, instead he bowed faintly and made his departure, aware of extra looks from Carrom, but not caring about them.

* * *

Spock found P'Losiwst outside his dorm room door wearing a crystalline tunic over white tights that showed off the inhuman musculature wrapping around the fronts of her shins.

"Too much?"

"I am a poor judge," Spock said. "But I see I should change."

"You have something for clubbing?"

"Not like that."

"Should we go shopping first? I know a great ten stores we can hit."

"I will make do. Allow me four and a half minutes."

"I'll be timing," she said as the door to his room closed.

Spock slipped into what he thought of as his mock meditation robes. They were a light consuming black, cut lean, with four layers of lapel down the front and sleeve sode that threatened to brush the floor.

He re-emerged to an appraising eye.

"Okay. That's pretty good. Sort of the antimatter style. Do you have earplugs?"

Spock fetched the set that had been included in his academy bathroom kit. He showed them to her and pocketed them.

"I don't want you getting hurt."

Spock raised a brow.

"Drunk, but not hurt," she said.

* * *

The club's noise formed a wall that beat on Spock's face and heart muscle. The plugs in his ears filtered the morass into rhythmic throbbing and indiscriminate tinkling, but at least he was comfortable. He was reading P'Losiwst's lips in the shifting and pulsing light. He wondered about her ear structure, she seemed to hear him if she leaned in when he spoke, something he estimated to be impossible.

She'd fetched them a second set of drinks and hiked herself up onto the very high stool at their very small transparent table. Figures gyrated past them, danced on crystal platforms that rose and sank, changed direction at when the music shifted.

"How are you doing?" She exaggerated the movement of her lips.

Spock nodded. He did not detect a change in his mental acuity from the first drink. He took a sip of the second one, stared into it.

She rapped the table beside his hand. "If you get plastered because you're scared to death of what's going on with James, I know he wouldn't hold it against you."

Spock contemplated the logic of retreat from awareness of emotional strain, which seemed to be the intent of this self-medication. A drug enforced temporary sanctuary was not entirely illogical if one had no other way. He stared at the drink again.

P'Losiwst spun around on her seat, watched the dance floors rising and falling, watched absurd shoes migrate in small circles on them. Club goers dressed in tight shiny skins or faceted tiny dresses strode by their bar area. With noses high, they looked Spock and P'Losiwst over and strutted on. P'Losiwst rotated back. "I think no one is asking me to dance because you're here and they aren't going to tangle with you." Her antenna aimed at him. "I mean, look at you."

"What do you propose?"

"Either you dance. With me. Or I'll make the rounds and find someone for few numbers and come back."

"I will wait."

She stared. "Sure?"

"Yes."

She continued to stare. "You have the perfect body for dancing."

"That is irrelevant."

"You have great coordination, sense of rhythm, and the right height for dancing."

"That is also irrelevant."

Her face shifted to disbelieving, antenna bent all the way to the sides.

"Okay. I'll be back."

Spock sat alone in a pounding universe of vibrating atoms and photons. A young man wearing black skin-tight velour with brown curls piled on his head, strands of it dangling down his back, stopped to flick his unnaturally long lashes at Spock.

Spock shook his head.

The man turned his body to another calculated pose, gave a shrug, and moved on with a toss of his strands.

Thirty minutes, and three other offers later, P'Losiwst returned.

"Daring crowd." She gulped the drink that arrived just as she did. "I saw all the come-ons from the platform. You're popular." She looked at his glass, at the same level as when she'd left. "You're not really drinking. Well. Good. You can see I make it home okay. And by okay, I mean not getting caught drunk coming back to the dorms."

"Understood."

* * *

The quiet of the city street felt akin to being muffled under a heavy blanket in contrast to the club. Spock breathed deeply of the dewy cool air that lacked a thousand human scents.

"Well, I feel better." P'Losiwst half tripped, stopped, took Spock's arm.

Spock crooked his arm to make it more stable for her balance. He was still well shielded from the club.

"Thanks. You have fun, at least? I can't tell. With you."

"I am fascinated by the casual mating rituals."

She snorted, fell silent for a time.

"There were two guys I'd have loved to be boned by, I'll admit. I'm not really sure why I sent them off. Maybe because we have a meeting at seven and it's already one." She held up a dramatic hand to the passing streetlight. "One." She snorted again. "My moon goddess, what's happened to me?"

"I believe you are prioritizing. Logically and productively."

"Bad job of it. My number one priority was to get you drunk. You need it."

"Despite my inability to change the conditions of my stress, I have determined it is logical to remain clearheaded and fully functional until I know more."

"That's even more reason to get drunk. Not less. You can't DO anything." She sighed. "That's how I've been feeling, despite our plans for revenge. Like it won't be enough, then a day later, like it's entirely the wrong thing to do." She gestured at the next streetlight. "I hate being like this. I used to be sure. No one had messed with my head before now." She squeezed his arm, shook it. "You know, you helping me get revenge makes it even more confusing."

"I have concluded that reciprocation is expected and to not comply would indicate our unworthiness for inclusion in this institutional culture."

She leaned heavily on his arm for a few paces. She giggled, stopped. She looked back along the darkened sidewalk.

"Maybe I should go back and find someone to knock around in bed with." She let go of him, swayed. "I'll meet you tomorrow."

"You entrusted me with the responsibility to see you home."

She tilted her head at him. "Damn it. I did that. Well shit. There is always that second year who sends me love notes I guess."

"As long as you have arrived at and remain in your dormitory building it is no longer my concern."

She hooked her arm through his again and pulled him into a long stride.

"Oh, goddess, it's like I'm clubbing with my dad."


	38. Breakdown

Chapter 38 - Breakdown

"Team Oscar, we know you can't respond or risk giving away position . . . triangulate . . . four . . . hun . . ."

The radio cut out, making the darkness feel even darker. Kirk kept walking, feet scuffing with each step. He flipped his face plate fully down to see the monitors. The signal meter was strong, but the noise had jumped to match, overpowering with a signal block. They'd need to get higher and hope for line of sight, but that was too risky right now. They were trapped and on their own until further notice. Without coordination of their position and that of the targets, an additional team couldn't safely attempt to blast them out from under the shield thrown up by the enemy base.

Kirk and team slogged around another bend in the narrow canyon. The glow of the morning was coming on, lighting the dust at their feet. They had yet to reach the rendezvous point. Emitted infrared had guided them through the night, growing murky as the world cooled. The armor, the weapons, the packs, everything felt three times heavier than it should.

"Break, sir?"

Kirk turned, nearly lost his footing, stopped. He nodded. There was no shelter for the last hour and no reason to expect any upcoming. Any place would have to do.

Packs dropped, weapons were rested on butts. Groans and mutters as bodies sank down. People tore open snacks with their teeth and drank from canteens. Kirk remained standing, hand on weapon. He drank a bit of water, than drank a lot when he felt it outline his guts and course through him like life itself.

Daylight filled the sky. Kirk roused them all to loud groaning. Armored bodies stretched, grunted. Gazes glanced challenging Kirk's way, then glanced off to the sides, to equipment. Postures spoke of annoyance, reserved outbursts. They continued along the canyon in silence.

Kirk heard the unfamiliar sound at the same time as the others. Two of the crew backpedaled to the sides of the canyon. Kirk and three others raised weapons, turned slowly on toes.

Fire blasted across Kirk's faceplate, seared sand and blasted apart plants to either side of him. A keening sound began, oddly human, and not. Kirk launched into a run, pushing sand backwards as much as he propelled himself forward, reached harder ground and began zig zagging. Streaks of phaser fire chased him. He heard return fire from their own guns, lifted his own as he ran, spun and ran backwards, looking for a target.

A small enemy ship darted out of view over the edge of the canyon, reappeared seconds later farther down, firing again. It changed directions too fast to contain a humanoid without advanced gravity compensation. Kirk followed it with his rifle, fired repeatedly. It went out of sight again.

"Cover!" Kirk yelled this despite the lack of available cover. He waved to indicate they should scatter out of the area, around the surrounding bends. Running footsteps came alongside Kirk. He turned back, saw a figure on its knees in the middle of wash of the canyon, gloved hands holding his helmet above and behind his head as if about to throw it overhand.

"Kilpea!" Kirk waved the others to go on. "Get to cover!"

The ship flitted overhead again. Blaster fire burned grooves of molten glass across the wash's surface. Kilpea remained fixed, head vulnerable, through the barrage, miraculously untouched.

Kirk scrambled back to him, straight down the center of the canyon. The ship overhead curved to follow. Kirk fired without shouldering his rifle. Dearly hoped his sense that the ship veered away was correct.

Kirk reached Kilpea, grabbed him under one armored arm as he passed. Kilpea was light, his body came free from the earth, toppled backward. He did nothing to stop the movement, fell on his back, dragged Kirk down with him. The barrage came again, tossing molten embers mixed with sand at them in radial bursts.

Kirk bent double over Kilpea, felt his backplate armor flare with heat as a blast crossed over him. Kirk pushed up, grabbed Kilpea by the edge of the plate on his chest and hauled him up. Another figure came in, took Kilpea's arm over his shoulder and hauled up. Ranran.

"I ordered you into cover," Kirk spat, mostly because he didn't expect him or anyone else and it unnerved him to fail to know where yet another thing was supposed to be.

"Yes sir."

Their voices wobbled with their running, each supporting Kilpea's arms. Kilpea kept trying to pull his legs up, pull into a fetal position. "No. No," he kept saying.

They rounded the first sharp bend of the canyon into a deeper, narrower gorge half blocked by waist-high fallen boulders, fully in shade. The rest of their small team were here, weapons at ready. The overhead warble came again. There was no way of going farther, dragging a man, and likely no cover ahead.

"Everyone down. Close up gaps in armor. Go silent."

Kilpea dropped as soon as he was released. Kirk and Ranran crouched close beside him. Kirk did as he ordered the others, pulled himself into a ball, knees wide and high. He couldn't breath well in this position but didn't relax it.

"No more. No more."

Kilpea fought against Ranran's attempts to put his helmet back over his head. Kirk yanked Kilpea into the curl of his body and bent over him to shield him from view and from fire. The ship darted overhead and kept going, firing twice at the wall of the canyon. They all remained still as it went on, sound fading, increasing, fading again. Trapped in Kirk's lap, Kilpea continued his mantra of pained denials. Kirk pulled his hand out of his glove and pinched the back of Kilpea's tightly corded neck, half a caress, half a rebuke. Kilpea fell still.

The ship darted overhead again, swept out farther along the canyon. The warbling surged and faded, firing sounded from a klick away, but the ship didn't reappear. No one moved for a long time.

Kirk decided the ship wasn't returning. He sat up, only then realizing that Ranran had been holding Kilpea's helmet over Kirk's back.

Ranran set the helmet aside. "Your armor's carbonized, sir."

The signal blocking would no longer be working across the damaged plates. His quick thinking had kept them invisible, as had Kilpea refusing the helmet.

"Thanks. Well done," Kirk said.

Kilpea's eyes were open but he appeared on the verge of catatonic. He remained flopped in Kirk's lap. Kirk's own limbs felt as lacking in will as Kilpea appeared to be. The others saw to their equipment with slow movements, half ignored their comrade draped over their commander. No one asked what their next orders were. Kilpea showed no signs of returning to himself.

Kirk didn't have a full medic with his team, only Verna, a low-level tech with a kit and minimal training.

Kirk caught his eye. "Got anything we can give him to keep him calm but still compliant with instructions?"

Verna bit his white lips. He stumbled over and knelt at Kirk's feet. He took out a hand scanner. Kirk released Kilpea's neck, which he had been still slowly massaging.

"No more," Kilpea said, almost factually. He fumbled around his belt.

Kirk and Verna moved at the same time to restrain Kilpea's hands and systematically removed his weapons from his person. Ranran dropped to his knees and emptied Kilpea's belt of everything else, inspecting each thing before putting it in his own kit bag.

Kirk held onto Kilpea, who tossed his head. Kirk said, "Mine too. He can get at mine as well."

Ranran hesitated but complied, taking all of Kirk's equipment onto his own belt.

Kirk scanned the sky. With the angle of the canyon, they'd be in shade for several hours.

"This is what we're going to do. There are six of us. Three are going on to the rendezvous. One will stay with me and Kilpea. Who wants to go?"

Two hands went up.

"Ranran, go along. I'm putting you in charge. Hand my stuff to Verna, who'll stay. I want you to find the team who went to the gun emplacement. If that means tracing their steps there, do so. If you get there and don't find them, return here. If you do find them, return here. Any questions?"

"No, sir, that's pretty clear."

Kirk rested one hand on Kilpea's spotted blond over brown buzzed hair. He was tall, but narrow, and had gone limp inside his armor. Kirk shifted his left leg, the only one he was free to move. Verna took up a position half in the light, propped up on a rock. He sighed bodily.

The departing trio established their plans where Kirk could hear them, then moved out.

Kilpea put his hands over his head and tried to curl up. Kirk shifted, let him lay on the ground instead of his leg, but kept a hand on his neck.

"I just want it. All. To. Stop," he said into the fold of his arms.

"It will eventually, for all of us," Kirk said. "No need to rush it. It will come."

Verna studied Kirk openly, even after Kirk fixed his gaze on him in return. Kirk's emotions were on hold. He hesitated examining them, wondering if he'd find acute disappointment in himself for his predicament, for his falling far short of what he had been so certain he could do. He didn't feel much of anything. He was going to get Kilpea through this. It seemed like the job most needing attention that he could manage right now.

Kirk rested his head back on the rock behind him and closed his eyes. He dozed instantly, his exhausted mind snatching at sleep as soon as it was offered.

"Sir?"

Kirk lifted his head. He was hot, very hot. The sun was shining across his shoulder and the side of his head. Kilpea was asleep in the shade of a boulder, with Kirk's hand on his ankle under the flexarmor at the top of the boot. Kirk didn't remember taking hold of him there.

Verna was standing up, brushing off, taking up his kit and rifle. Kirk rocked onto his knees and checked Kilpea's breathing. Voices and muted crunching footsteps made him lift his head. His team and the team assigned to attack the gun emplacement were entering their small area of canyon.

Kirk rocked back on his feet, but didn't stand, remained kneeling beside Kilpea. Lieutenant Uirik stepped through the crowd to take the lead, followed by Hummer and Jon carrying someone on a stretcher, someone worrisomely lifeless.

Uirick slipped off her helmet, rolled it into the crux of her arm. Her hair didn't flow out, but remained bundled and filthy at her neck. "Lost Hun, sir, on the initial approach to the gun. There was a trap we didn't see." She stared hard at the ground, "I didn't see."

Hungren was lowered to a shady spot on the scree at the edge of the canyon. His lips had the purple color of a body injected with stabilizer to prevent tissues from breaking down. Kirk nodded, put his hands on the armor covering his thighs. He felt both heavy and light, burdened and weightless.

Uirick seemed to be looking for more words.

Kirk said, "We need to send someone to meet up with the other team. Pick three. The rest will spread out along the canyon here in small groups."

She stared down at Kilpea as she nodded.

Hummer headed a fireteam that headed off. Uirick hadn't chosen herself to go as Kirk had expected.

Kirk sat beside Kilpea, forced him to drink nutrient water every half hour, stilled him with a tight hold on the back of his neck when he began chanting or keening. The bulk of the team rested or did inventory, or minor repairs on equipment or bodies. The hum of their conversation rolled around Kirk, not despairing or frustrated or even scared, just present, doing what was necessary without strain or complaint.

Kirk watched Bark out of the corner of his eye for a time. He was smiling at something Ranran was saying. They could be at base camp. They certainly didn't seem to be trapped inside enemy territory stuck under a commander with no plan.

Huey came over, crouched opposite Kirk. "Sure you don't want to T him?"

She meant a tranquilizer, Kirk assumed. "We might need him aware enough to move fast."

Huey's hands drooped between her knees. She stared at Kirk's hand on the back of Kilpea's neck. "I tried to save Hungren, sir. Did what's in the procedure. But I wonder if I could have tried longer to revive." She paused. A breeze ruffled her collar. "I could have stayed with him when we retreated. I tried to. I didn't have to obey."

"All you can do is promise to do your best next time. But don't over-learn from one incident. That's just as dangerous. Every situation is different."

"I'm assigned to medic, but I'm not one, really. But it's still on me."

Kirk adjusted which of his legs were bent, tried to get comfortable. He noticed the other conversations had quieted. Kirk dropped his voice. "You do the best with what you have, Ensign." Kirk couldn't resist voicing what he wanted someone higher up to say to him, were that person available.

She nodded vaguely and stood up. The medkit and other life-saving equipment had been stowed on the stretcher with the corpse. She stared down for a time before unstrapping everything with deliberate movements.

Conversation resumed. Team members settled in. Taking his time so as to not be caught doing it, Kirk watched each of them. The general mood didn't match their situation, at all. Where was the overwrought stress, the exhaustion, the lack of immediate hope for improvement? How could he be failing to understand something this important?

"Bark, Ranran. Over here."

Conversation stopped, and the two ambled over. Kirk studied faces. They were smeared with gray mud, lined with stress, but neutral, if not easy going.

"I want to talk this out," Kirk said. He wasn't sure what he'd intended to say. He had to cover. He needed a plan. "The base over there . . . It doesn't make sense."

Kirk looked down at the back of Kilpea's head, wondering if he could draw the distraught young man out since he was the expert on local politics.

"Why attack us?" Kirk said. This had been bothering him for a while.

"Sir?"

"I don't mean just now, I mean days ago. We were fired on from an emplacement controlled from this base. But this base is, we have already supposed, being held in reserve for when the Federation gives up and goes home." Kirk squeezed Kilpea's neck, but he remained silent. "Right?"

The two of them stood with the expressions all soldiers got when asked for an opinion beyond their current, far more important, concerns. Hummer's views Kirk trusted, but he'd gone off with the fireteam.

"So…" Kirk said. "I wonder if it's not automated, this base. By walking in, on foot, we appeared to be their old enemies, not Federation. If they detected Skuttles or other ships approaching, they'd have remained silent, invisible as possible."

Ranran toed the dirt. "Makes sense, I guess."

Kirk drew in a breath. "Does make sense. But what's it mean for us here. That's the question."

"Someone could Rock Bust the base for us. Tunneling torpedo."

"They could, but they'd risk hitting us doing it." Kirk said. "We're in the way." Kirk shook his head. "I have to assume the enemy base didn't make a rational decision because there wasn't anyone there to make one. Just a simple AI, deciding we weren't Federation and trying to repel us."

"You suggested a ground assault because no one would expect it." Ranran stood straighter. "Sir."

"I did. I was wrong. It triggered the base to come alive."

Their eyes drifted to Kilpea, there on the ground. Kirk patted his armor, looked up at Ranran and Bark. "Need anything from me?"

"No, sir." Again, that strange easy going tone, like they were old friends and would forgive a lot.

The pair moved off to where one fallen boulder propped on another provided some cover.

Kirk waved an insect away from Kilpea's ear and toyed with strategies to get them out from under the shield. They may have to retreat to the edge and signal their location so an attack could happen without putting them too much at risk. Retreat and rely entirely on help, with a body and a psych breakdown in tow. But still alive and that was what mattered.


	39. Just a Kid

Chapter 39 - Just a Kid

At the apartment door, Spock was assailed by the closed in scent of strangers. He followed Lt. Carrom into a glass-lined living space marked off with tubular floor to ceiling partitions. The apartment occupied half the forty-first floor of a building in American Canyon, north of San Francisco along the sinuous waterways.

Carrom's small wife came around a partition from a dining area, bowed in the way of humans who don't do so normally. She had pale brassy hair that hung in a curtain of waves. Spock returned an abbreviated Vulcan greeting since something cultural was expected, and she smiled while studying his face too closely.

"Come in," Carrom said. "The processor is handling most of dinner. Olga thought it safer than trying to cook for you, since you can just tell the thing requirements and it always meets them without making a mistake."

The far end of the apartment was dominated by a large room surrounded on two sides by matching tube-framed windows. Two small children were playing, the smaller one dragging an oversized brown toy bear around with her, leaving only one hand free to grab at a leaping, buzzing toy resembling a giant grasshopper. The slightly older toddler squatted, giggling, trying to catch the toy, too late by half a second each leap it made.

A slightly older girl, the one Spock frequently saw on Carrom's phone, stared sulkily at them all from a low chair nearby. She made a long low humming noise through her nose and propped her chin on the high side of the chair to watch them.

"Do you drink?" Carrom asked Spock.

"It is not my preference."

"That's an interesting answer," Olga said. She moved to sit down, then waited, fixed halfway until Spock settled in.

The shelving mounted to the partition behind them was stuffed with toys and games. Spock had worn a set of moderately fancy robes and had perhaps misjudged the occasion.

"You're in your first year?" Olga asked. She was leaning her small face on her hand on her elbow propped on her knee. It made her appear overly interested. "That's unusual, right? For this kind of extra course?" She looked back and forth between Spock and Carrom as she talked.

"That is my understanding," Spock said. "I am not familiar with any but this one instance of the advanced course offerings."

Her brows came together as if wanting to be amused, or bemused.

"You like earth?" she asked.

Spock fell back on the reply that had garnered the best response to this question in the past. "When it is warm, yes."

Carrom returned with a beverage that smelled like bread. Spock assumed it was beer. He hiked up his uniform and sat down and sank back. "Spock here's pretty smart, but very stubborn."

Olga's lips pinched into the first smile that made it to her eyes. "That must cause problems with the project." She said this while looking straight at Carrom.

Carrom lifted a hand in a shrug.

"I estimate that we will complete the project two days ahead of schedule at our current trajectory of progress."

As they talked, the smaller toddler curled up on the floor on her bear, using it as a bed and pillow. It made Spock miss I-Chaya in a way he had not in several years. He continued to answer questions by rote.

"Maybe we should eat?" Olga said without warning.

Spock drew his attention back to them, forced discipline on his thoughts.

"We can feed the kids in here?" Carrom said.

Spock followed Carrom to the dining room. And waited as his host took his time lighting three candles sitting deep inside ceramic vessels. He carried these to the table and positioned them down the center of it. He went out. Olga and he shared low conversation in the kitchen as Spock waited, watching the welcoming, fluttering glow inside the abstract cylinders.

Carrom returned with aromatic serving dishes from the kitchen and placed them on top of each candle vessel. The fork edged spoons that he hooked onto the handles of each vessel were unfamiliar to Spock. It reminded him that this household was of mixed homeworld, although generations ago.

"Sit." Carrom sounded like a Lieutenant.

Spock obeyed.

The older girl, about eight years old, stepped in behind Olga, knees and chin high, pulled out the chair on the far end, beside Spock, with some effort given its heft.

"Eating with us?" Olga's surprise was clear.

When the girl had levered herself up on the chair, Spock said, "We have not been introduced, I am Spock."

The girl blinked at him as if serious thought were required. "Lareqa. With a _CUE_ thank _YOU_."

Carrom shook his head, sighed quietly enough only Spock would have heard it. Carrom sat back, shook a cloth onto his lap and gestured in Spock's direction at the serving dishes.

"I'll serve," Olga said, and held out her hand for Spock's plate.

Lareqa put her elbow on the table beside her plate and angled her head up at Spock. "Do your ears hurt?"

"Lar…" Olga said.

"It is an acceptable question," Spock said gently, but waited for a nod from her before turning back to the child.

Olga made a face as she spooned from a second vessel onto Spock's plate. "Lar, think ahead about what you say. Please."

"Mmmm . . . but they look like they hurt." Lareqa said with a whine.

"They do not." Spock said pleasantly. "They were this way when I was born." Lareqa had her father's hair, but none of his vaguely Cardassian features. Human dilution had overwhelmed that heritage, apparently.

"Do you have a room to yourself or do you have to share?" Lareqa said. "Mmmm…I have to share."

"He has to share," Carrom said between bites. "Ships are like apartments, there isn't a lot of space. They make them share at school too. Sometimes three to a room."

"Do you have to share with your brother like I do?" Lareqa said.

"No. Not any longer. I. Was. Assigned a roommate by the Academy."

Carrom looked up at this, possibly spotting the lie. His angular brows stayed up for a time.

The meal went on, small talk from the adults gradually gave way to nonstop questions from the daughter. Spock sensed that her behavior was perhaps novel and despite the social awkwardness, desirable. The plates were taken away and a basket of hot towels were brought in scented with citrus.

Lareqa wiped her hands viciously and tossed the towel onto the table, then leaned forward, fingers hooked on the table edge. "We get pear tartan, cuz you're here."

"Pear tarte tartin, my dear," Olga said. She put small silver sporks before each of them. "Tartan is a pattern of plaid used by the Scots to denote their clan."

"Mmmmm. Yum. Yum. Yum." Lareqa said, swinging her feet.

"Stubborn like her dad," Olga said.

Carrom came in, handed out bowls lined with desert and topped with ice cream. The scent of sublimating deep freeze forced Spock to suppress a flinch.

Lareqa spooned voraciously at her bowl, barely chewing, scraped repeatedly before giving up. Bored then, she propped her head on her hand again and watched Spock eat his small careful bites. "Your mom have pointed ears too?"

"Lar . . ." Olga began.

"No, she does not." Spock said.

Olga looked up, wiped her mouth and fell silent.

"My mother is a human like yours," Spock said.

Olga and Carrom exchanged a glance.

"She? Mmmmmrm. She make you eat your peas?"

"We do not eat peas, thankfully. They do not grow on Vulcan."

"Let's move to Vulcan," the girl said.

Olga pretended not to smile, took the bowls away.

"You should come see my planetoid. Dad can I show him. Please?"

The pause was brief. Again Spock sensed an undercurrent, as if this was novel and the adults wanted to act as if it were normal. "Sure," Olga said.

Lareqa wriggled to the side of the large heavy chair and jumped down. Leapt away out the door.

"You don't mind?" Olga asked as Spock stood.

"In our culture childhood inquisition is to be encouraged."

Carrom had a fresh beer in his hand sending up a fizzy aura of yeast output. "Vulcan children use that to their advantage?"

Spock nodded. "Of course."

Carrom smiled and shook his head.

Spock sat cross legged on the floor beside a hologram of an astroid station projected inside an inexpensive transparent dome. Lareqa was using a pair of squishy knobs to move it in four dimensions, turning it as well as accelerating time passing.

"I put in a dog shop. See? Now everyone wants a dog."

The asteroid station's living space was indeed dominated by a pet store full of dogs as well as a dress shop and a toy store. There was a fountain in the middle of the elevators with an alligator living in it. Tiny figures moved through the spaces, buying dogs and dresses, walking far around the fountain. Spock found the bald illogic of it oddly liberating to the mind.

"This is me." She pointed at a large-headed figure in a short little pink dress. "I run the astronomy lab on the planetoid. This is my room over here."

Spock sensed a silent conversation going on between Carrom and Olga, but kept his attention on the tour, on the changing out of dress store stock to a new set of colors and styles on an asteroid tumbling through space. Lareqa put things in, took them out again. Her extra vocalizations of stress came and went as she manipulated the simulation.

Lareqa leaned forward to peer at the details. "They're talking about my bedtime. I have a super, stupid early bedtime. Mmmmrm. Ridiculous."

Carrom and Olga collected up the two fussing toddlers and with minutes of patient placation, took them off.

"Own room," Lareqa said. "I wish I had my own room."

"I understand," Spock said. Despite having his own, he had too many unsavory moments of Sybok invading it to make it feel possessed by him in memory.

"Your mom make you go to bed really really early?"

"When I was your age, certainly. Now I do so because it makes my day more efficient. More pleasing."

"That's boring."

"Yes."

Conversation was happening outside the partition. Spock tried not to listen in. He found himself uncaring of the undercurrents, but could not tune them out. Apparently the child didn't interact successfully much. Perhaps she didn't find it logical to, Spock thought.

"Mom and dad have a nice room, with real walls. Like on my planetoid. See. I have a door into the dog shop so I can herd all the dogs into my room. And I can put them out again when I feel like it."

Spock looked beyond the lights reflecting on the glass around them at the thickly standing buildings of Lombard and American Canyon. Aircars flitted by, their lights drawing streaks on the retina.

"You do not like your apartment here on earth?" Spock asked.

She made her odd noises for a time and kept working at changing things on the simulation.

Carrom and Olga returned, sat on the far end of the long couch. They seemed to be waiting for a cue, perhaps from Spock.

"Everyone needs a dog," Lareqa said. "I think. Do you have a dog?"

"I am not allowed pets at the Academy."

"That's mean of them. Everyone needs a dog."

"I am too busy for a dog."

"Adults are always too busy. Too busy for this. Too busy for that. Busy Mmmmmrm busy." She frowned and sighed, sat back and watched the simulation running at normal speed. Her hands were more like that of a toddler than a teen. Spock had no idea how humans developed or at what rate.

"You have a girlfriend?" she asked.

"I have a boyfriend."

"You do?" Her face went from hopeful to sly.

Spock nodded.

"Where is he?"

Spock saw no logical purpose in the truth. "He's on a ship. Exploring."

"He cute?"

"I cannot judge that."

"I'll tell you if he's cute." She tapped the side of Spock's knee repeatedly with the back of her hand. "Let me see him. Let me see."

Spock took out his small Academy padd and pulled up a picture of Kirk from a hike. The breeze filled his hair from the side and the sun was having trouble competing with his smile. Spock held himself, with great effort, from falling into that place. He remained present, unemotional.

Lareqa squealed at a frequency dangerous to Spock's hearing. He angled his head away and she took the padd from his hands while he was distracted.

"He's really cute. Look at him, mom." She held the padd up crooked to show them.

Olga stood up and came over. "He is cute."

Lareqa swept through the pictures, stopped at one of Kirk in uniform. "Look. Look. Can I have a boyfriend?"

"Yes, I see. When you're a little older. I think it's time for bed now, though."

Spock sensed a recoiling, an acidic shifting of muscle and skin, not in Olga or Lareqa, who were right beside him. He turned his head partway. Carrom was staring at the padd from the couch, face fixed and drained of color.

"Mrrmmm. Mrrrm. MRRRRM." Lareqa noises grew acute. She stomped off with a hand leading her away by the shoulder.

Carrom stood in a rush and stalked off as well.

Spock rested his hands in his lap as if just terminating meditation. He sat alone, feeling the tail end of his host's bristling alarm. He picked up his padd where it had dropped and shut it off without studying the photo still showing. He could hear muffled anger from beyond a door designed to cut it out entirely for human ears.

Carrom strode back into the room midway putting on an old style landing party coat. "Out. Come on."

Carrom walked like a crewmember during red alert, long strides and snapping boot soles. He barely waited long enough for the doors to slide open ahead of him.

In the elevator, Carrom spoke the level where he'd parked the aircar they'd arrived in, three floors from the top of the building. He tapped his fingers on his leg with some violence. His emotions were wiring the space of the elevator car enough it raised the hair on Spock's neck.

"It is unnecessary for you to provide transportation back to the Academy, sir," Spock said.

Carrom didn't reply, but his fingers stopped drumming. The elevator stopped, opened. He resumed his rapid stride and Spock followed to the silver aircar parked three vehicles from the light-framed doorway leading to open air and a seventy-eight story drop.

Spock stopped beside the passenger door while Carrom went around, movements increasingly indicative of controlled violence.

Spock said, "I can procure an aircab home, sir. Or a transporter. It is no issue."

Carrom signaled the aircar doors to open with a wave. "Get in."

Spock obeyed. He hooked the safety harness and sat back. During the pre-flight checks he found an emotionless center that he felt certain would hold for the twenty six minute flight.

The car lifted off, swept back and then sideways, then forward out of the building through the flashing opening and out into the canyons between the night-lit buildings.

"I don't believe this." Carrom sat with shoulders bunched up. "A Militant of all the . . . Jesus, I left you alone with my girls. I'm sick just to think about it." He glared forward out the windscreen. "Chanel is going to answer for this."

A longer pause.

"Nothing to say for yourself?" His voice was as electric as his body.

"It is only logical that you wish to protect your offspring."

"Yeah, only logical." He looked Spock up and down. "How the hell did you get into the Academy? That's what I want to know."

Spock spoke from inside his intent calm. "I was cleared by both Starfleet Security and Starfleet Intelligence and my application was processed with their files attached."

"Oh. Those idiots," Carrom muttered. He hit his thigh with his hand. "What the hell was Chanel doing setting me up like this with no warning?" He snorted. "You're like her pet."

"I have observed that."

Carrom stared out the side window with his jaw working. "Does security or intel even know how easy it is for you people to fool a truthteller?"

Spock wanted to ask why he was willing to be in the same vehicle, but saw no productive end to such a question. "Yes. Starfleet Intelligence used an experimental intravenously fed microbot neuro network on me for six hours."

"Well, that's reassuring."

The silence didn't last. "I don't get it. Why'd the Academy let a Militant apply at all? It's nuts."

Spock turned to him. Humans became distorted in unique ways when angry. Vulcans all grew angry in roughly the same way.

"I did not want a war that would severely damage my world. I joined the Militants to sabotage them. And that is what I did."

A long pause. The darkened bay opened up beneath the aircar which banked gradually to stay distant from the high buildings. "Yeah?" Carrom's jaw worked. "You can prove that?"

"I have done so already. As you repeatedly assert, sir, otherwise I would not have been allowed to apply to Starfleet."

The aircar moved through a layer of fog hanging over the cooler parts of the bay.

"But you were willing to join the Militants. To be with them."

Spock contemplated this statement. It was true that he'd have a harder time doing so now. "That was the only way." And he could not bear to remain at home for his own reasons. But he did not add that.

Carrom looked out the side window. "How were they? Lovely beings, I suppose?"

This was clearly mocking, and Spock wondered about the purpose behind the question. "They were less predictable than average Vulcans."

"They were murderous. Violently murderous." Carrom's face and his upper body warped again with rage as he spoke. He seemed to expect a response even though it wasn't stated as a question.

"It took time for me to arrange a successful plan of sabotage."

Spock also turned away, remembering the desperate break periods where he buried himself in previously useless meditation techniques to avoid succumbing to frustration and fear.

He looked forward again, face neutral. "I wanted to make more than one Militant ship vulnerable to Starfleet attack when I did risk my position. I had to wait." Spock's control suddenly had all the substance of the fog they passed through. He focused on the next words to cover for it. "I had no choice but to remain quietly aside and undetected and allow others to be harmed."

It was as if the reaction Spock should have had then had tunneled through time to the present moment. He was awash with hopelessness, the long wearing tedium and stress, the sound of shattering spinal bones, the fleeting panic of a confused soul.

Spock looked away again, fixed his gaze beyond the dizzying fog banks looming then whisking by. He had no center to anchor on. He had gone hollow. He could barely perceive his own alarm at his exposed state. He clung to Kirk's warning of this as a remote means of understanding and accepting this weakness. If it were predictable it was therefore normal and therefore could not be hopeless.

Carrom bent forward, put his hand on top of his head, held that way.

Spock pulled control around himself. His core was useless still, but he fixed an emotionless mask in place and breathed normally again.

Carrom still stared at the aircar floor. The wall of high buildings on the far side of the bay rose higher ahead of them, reflected on the water, blurred in places by fog.

"I need to get away from things," Carrom said. "That's why I'm in this class. I need to get transferred to earth permanently." He faintly shook his head then bowed it more, almost putting his chin to his chest. "Chanel put me with you to help my grade, I'm certain."

Spock found that highly unlikely, but he understood too little to assert this.

"She said to be nice to you because you're just a kid."

"That is an unnecessary concern, sir."

"You charmed the socks off my daughter who barely wants anyone to talk to her. You really seemed too good to be true." He sat up straight, head forward. "I have a hard time believing anyone could join the Militants for innocent reasons. It would be too awful to be there."

"That is your prerogative, Lieutenant."

"It sure as hell is."

The aircar began steering itself inland, joining a stream of other vehicles. The buzz of the antigrav cooling fans became the only noise for seven minutes.

Carrom pinched his bottom lip. "Maybe talking to Commander Kirk would help, since he apparently knows you well. Right?" He slapped his hand down. "I can't believe Chanel would do this without saying a word. But she is getting old. Maybe you can warn Commander Kirk I'm going to message him?"

The hollow opened up again. Spock was gutted so easily by the past because there was less of him in the present.

"Cadet?" the voice was sharp.

"Commander Kirk is stationed in Lohanna Sector, sir. He has been radio silent for thirty one days during a great deal of fierce action. You may attempt to contact him if you wish. You are as likely to get a message through as I am."

"Why's he in Lohanna? He could have gotten any assignment."

"He volunteered."

"You lied to Lareqa." His face distorted again. "You can lie."

"You must agree that the truth would serve no purpose to a child of that age. And I have the same ability to lie as any human."

Four minutes passed.

"I just don't know what to think," Carrom said.

"Your distrust is perfectly logical, sir."

Carrom stared out the window, spoke fast, "You know, there's a lot of confusion when things get messy. Good chance Kirk's just has to stay EM silent or at minimal tightcast until an operation wraps up. Until they get reinforcements, or the upper hand, but he's probably fine, just laying low."

"I am aware of that possibility, sir."

"You need to worry less or you won't make it on this end."

Spock's voice was hushed. "I did not expect to experience this level of concern."

Carrom sniffed. The aircar was slowing, peeling off for the sprawling blocks containing the Academy.

"How'd you meet?" This was a completely different tone of voice.

"He was rescued from Wolfram Thesus V by my family's ship after the Sanchez was captured. He was taken to my parent's home on Vulcan where I was living at the time."

"That's not a little strange?"

"My father is the ambassador to the Federation and my family home akin to an embassy at times. He could not be taken to earth or her stations due to concern that our ship might be embargoed."

"Oh."

The car settled onto the airdeck on top of the Academy Support building. Carrom pressed a button and air hissed, equalizing pressure.

"I don't know what to think, Cadet." His steely gaze remained averted, but the energy of his body spoke of exhausted emotion.

Spock unhooked the safety harness but remained in place. The airdeck sat in quiet, just the wind indicators fluttering, the laser guides glowing in the fog. "It is certainly within your purvey to change project partners, sir."

"Before we left I sent a rant to Chanel that I can't unsend. And you could do this project alone, easily."

"I believe Captain Chanel stated that working with another was an essential component of the assignment."

"Yes."

Carrom leaned forward against his harness, fiddled with the controls for the routing back to his building.

"Am I dismissed, sir?"

"Yeah." Carrom frowned more deeply.

Spock swung out of the aircar and stood beside the open door. The wind buffeted him. The shields to dampen it must have been disabled for some reason.

"Look. I hope Kirk's okay." Carrom finally looked up at Spock. He shook his head and waved the doors to close.

Spock stepped back. The antigrav cooling blowers started up and the aircar rose and banked away.


	40. Retreat

Chapter 40 - Retreat

Spock went to his dorm room just long enough to change into his uniform. He went early to his evening session of station simulation training. He stood off to the side and watched the other first year cadets finishing up their scenarios. It was illogical to feel anything as a result of being in their presence, but he did. He felt relieved. When a station opened up, Spock sat at it. He reset the simulation to baseline and looked over the first scenario's presets.

Every practice session was with a different group of students now that they had reached minimum proficiency. Station training was intended to make personnel easily replaceable, not irreplaceable. Spock noted each arriving student as they pulled themselves into a seat at the assigned station pod. As the simulations ran, the students talked, got familiar with each other along random topic arcs. They spoke to Spock only occasionally, as if assuming he did not want to share but not wanting to systematically ostracize him for it. Spock felt gratitude for this but did not show it.

Training finished, Spock retreated to his room. He reviewed the lecture videos for the next day, the extra readings. He learned nothing new doing so. He stared at his padd, at the empty spot along the sidebar where notice of a message from Kirk would appear when one was available. Spock let his emotions have room to move, to drift, to see where they would settle.

Lt. Carrom's opinion of Spock and his actions was of only mild importance relative to Kirk's silence. Perhaps even unimportant except as an indicator that Spock faced a long term necessity of proving himself many times over.

Spock changed into a set of thick cool-season robes and lay on his bunk in the dark. For the first time since Kirk had left on assignment, Spock allowed himself to review memories of Kirk in fine detail: conversations over boxes of takeout food, the smile in his eyes upon encountering Spock unexpectedly, the unconscious way his body tried to align itself to his own if they were in proximity to one another, his compact body emerging from the shower scented with lemon zest and ginger and encased in steam.

Spock revisited every detail of memories which he'd chosen solely along emotional measures. He ignored the illogic of the action. He estimated he was dooming his control, at least until he would see Zienn and could get assistance, but he found solace in the memories that would be impossible to obtain any other way.

Spock meditated lightly, holding the echo of the memories close as a pseudo-presence to keep him company, making tangible a wholly intangible thing. Like his relationship to Kirk itself. That, at least, held a certain logic.

* * *

"You really know how to get on my shit list, Lieutenant."

Carrom stood in the office pod in the Starfleet Annex, just outside the door to Captain Chanel's temporary desk. She wasn't looking at him. In the harsh light, her makeup stood out as a thing separate from her skin, like armor.

"I would have appreciated a warning, sir." Carom straightened more. "I don't think it's too much to ask."

She looked up at him and said nothing, just looked. He met her challenge, didn't fidget.

A group of three passed through the pod, went to an office and the door slid closed.

Chanel said, "I'm aware that you need to do well in this class to get one of those highly coveted, mid-level earth assignments. You made the naive mistake of writing that on your application for the class." She used a mocking tone for this.

Carrom moved his jaw but didn't reply.

"The only warning you needed about Cadet Spock was the one I gave you. That he was just a kid. Why do you think I assigned him to you as a project partner, you, a rare man these days with three kids. I thought you'd work with him better than some wet-eared ensign who might think him ripe for being bantered around."

Carrom's lips twitched.

She dropped her voice. "If you don't trust Starfleet, or me, why are you standing here?"

Carrom didn't let his posture slip. He felt too much like one of those ensigns right then. "I don't know, sir."

"Well, that's finally a sensible statement from you." She shifted around the few things on her desk. "I don't ever let students change partners. That's not how the world works. You learn to deal or you find another line of work. But I'm going to make an exception and let Spock decide if he wants to continue being yours."

"You don't believe it's a given he wants to switch?"

"Lieutenant." She put her hands on her hips, pushed her already square shoulders back. "I oversaw a hearing for a security officer that crushed Spock's fingers under her boot after stunning him unconscious. I watched him stand up without prompting and argue for leniency because he thought she understood well enough what she'd done and would be an asset as a result." She waited. "Did you stun Spock silly and break the fingers of his hand?"

Carrom was sweating. "No sir. Of course not."

"Then I expect Spock will forgive you. He wants to join us so badly he has to forgive us a lot of things. And I'd trade ten of you for him, so he and I are in sync on wanting him in." She turned to her desk. "Now get out of here."

She called out as he was leaving. "And I still expect better of you from here on."

He stopped and turned back, put his feet together. A pair of lieutenants strode by, engaged in conversation, barely noticing him there. "Yes, sir."

* * *

"Show me the scans you've got." Kirk crouched in the shade of a recently sliced off rockface sticking sharp end down into the silt at the bottom of the ravine.

The remainder of their party had arrived and arranged themselves in groups along the canyon, checking in with each other on foot every hour. Kirk now had Hummer to convene with, as well as his Second. The three of them bent low with helmets loosened, set back on their heads. Uirik's red hair emerged around her cheeks as grease saturated tendrils.

Kirk patted Kilpea's ankle. He hadn't moved in an hour. He'd checked his breathing twice in that time.

Kirk called Bark over. "I'm putting you in charge of Kilpea for a while." He waited while Bark's eyes widened. "Understand?" Kirk said firmly.

Bark nodded, alert now. He dropped to his butt beside Kilpea's head and shook his armored shoulder. "Stay with us, Buddy. Okay?" he nearly shouted into Kilpea's ear.

A smile tried to form on Kirk's lips.

Kirk turned back to Hummer. "Let's see the scans. You've got the base?"

They reviewed new scan of the base taken at very low power by leaving a scanner on top of a rock spire for an hour and moving away in case it was fired upon. There was nothing new except evidence of a few short tunnels under it, which Kirk could have guessed. No apparent life forms, but some areas were better blocked than others.

"What was that?" The display had flickered, whited out on some of the frequencies.

"A ship flew overhead, during scanning really low."

"Let me see. Something fired on us around that time." Kirk held up the scanner, angled it so the hazy dust on the screen didn't catch the light. "Yeah, that's it. Scanner doesn't have the exact craft on record, but lists it as low-development. Unmanned."

Uirik took the scanner in turn, watched the same data over again. "It is pretty crude. No wonder no one's riding in it. The power packs are unshielded, and there are a lot of them retrofit in the pilot bay. What kind of range were they trying to get out of it?"

"Would it have blown if we'd hit it?" Kirk asked. "We returned fire when it attacked."

Hummer took it back, made adjustments. "I expect. If you were trying to hit it, you got funky lucky you're a bad shot." He looked up. "Sir."

Kirk smiled crookedly. "It's okay. The extra power packs perhaps aren't for range. They're for a larger blast." Kirk stretched, tried to shake off the oppression of that narrowly missed awful alternative. "It kept harrying us. Maybe attracting fire was the intent. Another idiot device with simple programming. Go straight to the enemy, try and make them blow themselves up playing defense. It's targeting was subpar too, maybe that was why. You're right. It's good we didn't hit it."

Kirk pulled his knees up, hooked his arms around them. "Given how simple the craft's program is, we could lure it to the gun emplacement. Shoot it down where the blast in is range of the gun. The blast might be big enough to undermine the emplacement stability and take out the localized shielding, leave it open to smaller fire."

Hummer and Uirik and Bark looked at him, waited. The idea was workable, with some cooperation from the enemy's idiot programming. And some luck. It was likely the low level scan that had triggered the small pod ship to come after them. They could repeat that. A small team, three or four, could undertake the operation, easily. They had exactly three sharpshooters with them. Place a scanner set to delayed scan toward the base within blast range of the gun, get in position at a safe distance. Fire when the ship came to harry whoever was sending out the scan. Use the enemy's simplicity against them for a change.

Kirk said none of it aloud. He didn't want to fix it in their minds the way it fixed immediately in his own. He sat unmoving in the trickle of breeze, aware of the angle of the sunlight on the wall of the canyon, the stillness of everyone in view.

Kirk breathed in, let it out. "Let's let the Skuttles have target practice." He pushed to his feet. "We're rested. Time to retreat. We have rock tunneling buster torpedoes for this. No need for heroics."

"That's no fun, sir," Hummer said, half joking.

"You know what's fun?" Kirk said. "Hot showers." He turned to Uirik. "Thoughts, Second?"

"I love hot showers." She looked down, blushed. The first time he'd seen that on her. Her skin gave way to it easily. She turned away, crouched to check on Kilpea.

"Find us a route to the edge of the shield and a spot where we can send up a climber to signal," he said to Hummer. "Lieutenant," he said to Uirik's back. "Warn everyone we move out in twenty."

Hummer hunched over his scanner, strode to the shade to better read it.

Kirk's chest heated, clenched. He felt he was giving in. He felt also that he doing the right thing. He tried not to show his annoyance on his face.

* * *

"Would you like your mother to join us?" Sarek made no move to smell his just poured tea.

The servant set the teapot on the table and departed without asking asking the service order.

Spock had been deep in memory. He would see Zienn that afternoon. Over the last day, he had made little effort to remain present, away from the withdrawal of memories. At this point, he feared he would need a discipline that he did not possess. Without an immediate distraction of an important task, he was finding more unreviewed memories of Kirk to re-experience.

Sarek placed his clasped hands on the table. "I assume you have still not heard from James."

"Correct." Spock did find some discipline in the face of his father's potential disapproval.

"I regret your resistance to a bonding. You would not suffer this uncertainty in that case."

Spock well knew this. He momentarily bit his lips rather than point that out in a manner that would certainly allow his emotions to lash out. He still wished to remain free of a bond, which only made the pain of the unfollowed alternative path more acute. He could indeed easily know Kirk's current state, one way or the other.

Spock fixed his attention on the centerpiece, a low white bulbous vase with little square compartments in the top of it, each with a single tulip bud in it.

"But it is illogical to dwell upon what cannot be changed," Sarek said. "Can I assist you?"

"No."

Sarek signaled for a servant and had him fetch Amanda.

Amanda arrived, eyes searching. She took the only other seat at the table. The servant departed without setting it for tea.

"I require your assistance with Spock," Sarek said.

Spock raised his head. "I regret representing a difficulty."

"It is not you who is difficult, but in difficulty," Sarek said. "And I estimate that I will speak incorrectly again."

This was very nearly an apology. Spock studied him for the first time that day. His face was softened by age more than expected, as if Spock's mental image of him was not updating as time passed.

"I'll be relieved when you are at the temple, Spock," Amanda said.

Spock turned to her. "You will?"

"First love is always unduly difficult."

"Are you like father. You expect I will grow out of it?"

She smiled painfully. "No. And I don't think your father believes that any longer." She glanced across Spock at Sarek. "I think you need to grow up a bit more and everything will get easier."

"That is not unlike growing out of it, in one manner."

"Not necessarily, Spock." Her voice grew softer. "It's like learning to appreciate a fine wine rather than simply getting drunk upon it."

Spock let his hands fall loose but clasped in his lap. "I see. And understand."

"There are two approaches to your situation," Amanda kept talking and Spock assumed he must have missed a silent communication between his parents. "You can prepare yourself for a possible future you dread, so that you will be able to face it better. Or you can assume you will cope unprepared if that time arrives. And in the meantime, not suffer the difficulty of admitting how much emotional risk you are under."

"I do not wish to prepare." Spock felt the emotional load shift upon saying this. He dropped his voice because it had come out less steady than it should. "I perhaps underestimated the burden of simply not addressing that denial."

"You are young, there is no reason you would know."

"It is illogical to act without information," Spock said.

"Of course, Spock," she said kindly.

Spock wished for relief. He was fatigued in some deep way. "I too look forward to the temple. The distraction of my projects and classes is leaving me insufficient energy to attend to my meditation."

"And you are changing, Spock." Amanda reached a hand out, placed it on the table near Spock's cup. "You have to keep up with yourself."

Spock drew his robes together, straightened himself. "I would prefer less attention."

"Of course." She smiled, drew herself up and departed with a swish of her layered clothes.


	41. Hanging

Chapter 41 - Hanging

Spock crossed the basement of the Starfleet Annex and approached the pool of light containing Lieutenant Carrom. The seating area was quiet tonight. The hush seemed to honor Spock's solemn state of mind regarding Kirk. Illogical to make such a connection. Romantic. Poetic. Unacceptable.

"Cadet." Carrom sounded resigned and frustrated in equal measure.

Under his curious gaze, Spock took a seat, firmly settled into Zienn's disciplines, gently taught. Zienn's freely given consideration the day before had itself threatened to undermine Spock. At least Shutan, his literature tutor, had been appropriately harsh and dismissive of Spock's experiences. That had been preferable.

Carrom sat with one fist propped on his hip. "I admit I can't read your face one iota. You hear from Kirk?"

Spock twitched his head to shake it.

"What's his status show as on his public record?"

"Deployed. And the sector."

"Well, Starfleet thinks they know where he is." Carrom didn't move to pick up the padd balanced on the armrest, just watched Spock for a time. "You apparently didn't want to change partners for the rest of the project."

"I must work with everyone. Even those who do not like me."

Carrom sat back farther, sighed. "I don't approve of you-your past actions anyway. They alarm me, frankly. Random violence like that . . . It's the end of civilization to behave like that. The end of everything." He sighed again, took up his padd, propped it awkwardly on his knee without sitting up.

Spock pulled out his own device. The model spun, showing copious yellow and red, the unresolved engineering conflicts. Spock pushed a coolant system pump across a bulkhead which would make the total length short enough, but it would leave the department short of living space, which now turned a gray-yellow in response. He paused the model long enough to display Kirk's status in the upper control bar. It remained unchanged.

Unlike Amanda, Zienn had suggested Spock suffer now, accept and fully understand what his future would be like without Kirk. He insisted that emotional peace in the now could only be achieved that way. The alternative was full emotional isolation until he had more information, which Zienn did not recommend for one such as Spock.

"You have to give in," Carrom said.

Spock looked up, wondered how Carrom had read his mind. Carrom stared back with a confused, then curious expression. As if he understood Spock had found other meaning in his statement.

"I meant on the model. It can't be solved as is."

Spock looked down, gripped the padd edges, appalled at how much he'd revealed. His disciplines were still in place, but he didn't want to look up again. He longed to escape the room.

Carrom said, "Thirty five days of silence on the kind of grab and go missions Kirk should be on IS a little long. You are right to be worried. Distraction's the best medicine though. You can't. Do. Anything. From here."

He sounded increasingly angry in some deep way, even though he spoke amiable words. Spock had no choice but to look up. He sensed unspoken thoughts rattling Carrom's muscles against untapped action. Spock thought he could guess the words. A lot of people never returned home because of the Militants. Family at home worried at the silence, just like Spock was now, without hope.

They stared at each other. Spock's discipline held. The pieces Zienn was teaching him, one patient session at a time, were meshing together in his mind and were easier to call upon, even when he was already losing ground.

"Let's finish this," Carrom said. "My daughter won't leave me alone about you visiting again. She's really good at spotting lies so I need to be able to say you and I don't have a project anymore." Carrom sat forward, hunched. "These are the systems we are going to miss spec on. Here. Here. . . ." He went down the lines of a list he'd already made.

Spock followed along on his own copy, watched systems move out of conflict to yellow, a few to green.

"I have another list, but let's start there for round one. Now we document why we think we can get away with those numbers. We need to go back to the original assignment, the expected types of missions the ship will be put to, length of mission, distance from base, that sort of thing."

"Skill level and expected distribution of personnel?" Spock said.

Carrom shrugged his pointed shoulders. His attitude was increasingly dismissive. "Sure. If you want to write that. Go ahead. But let's finish this thing. Be great to be done early." He scratched his hair back, began swiping rapidly at the screen.

Spock wanted to try and arrange the out of spec systems yet another time. He resisted. Did as he was told.

* * *

Spock rode an open platform lift from the Annex basement to the ground level, rode up through dim lights shining through abstract sculptures with water sluicing down their sides. It was late. Carrom had drunk four tall coffees, but they had declared their project complete, ten days early. Spock turned his mind to his other courses, the extra materials he had been neglecting.

The inner connector to the Academy was roped off and dome shaped bots were resurfacing the floor. Spock stepped outside, breathed in the chilly night air. He walked around the long way over glowing sidewalk seams and low path lighting. The trees and palms shot up from tall planters, solid black against a hazy blue sky streaked with the landing platform lights on the taller buildings.

The hum of the city was comforting, meditative. Spock slowed, breathed in consciously, accepting the moist air conflicting with the passages leading to his lungs. He heard a sound and turned, alert. His mind had gone distant, but pulled back to his immediate vicinity. He sensed attention on himself.

"It's our friendly neighborhood Vulcan." It was Jaek's voice, modified by a mind altering chemical, likely alcohol. He was sitting alone in an alcove of stone benches against the wall of the laboratory building.

Spock stepped that way, but stopped at the opening to the larger sitting area. Multiple hazy lights bled into the air, leaving backlit indistinct outlines that were tricky even for Spock's night vision. The breeze was low and the building radiated the day's warmth. In the middle distance a fountain gurgled.

"What'er'ya doing out this late, Cadet?" Jaek's shadowy form projected a mimicry of seriousness.

"I had a late project meeting in the Annex with Lieutenant Carrom, sir."

Jaek waved a canteen around to gesture and Spock smelled ethyl alcohol.

"How's the project? Going well, I suspect." He sipped then lowered the canteen to his lap. "You probably aren't loathed by your project partner."

Jaek had been assigned to an officer as a kind of punishment to said officer. Spock stood straighter. "You would estimate incorrectly, sir."

"Would I? Surprised. Surprised. You're stupid smart. You know. What's not to like."

"The lieutenant has stated his reasons for his dislike and I am not in a position to argue otherwise."

"Well. What do I know." Jaek held up the opaque canteen as if to see the amount in it. "I'd offer you some, but I'm already in trouble."

"That is all right, sir. It has little effect on me."

Jaek scratched his ear, then the side of his head, which was clipped short to a shadow like a three-day-old beard. "Work work. What do you do for fun, Cadet?"

"I am quite pleased with the task of learning itself."

"So the Vulcan says." Jaek snorted. "Except. You know. I heard… You know, I heard someone said you got caught with an unreg in your room earlier in the term. It's always the quiet ones that can't hold back."

"That was many weeks ago."

"Still." Jaek's lips sounded curled with amusement.

Spock felt less substantial there in the dimness thinking of Kirk. "I am not certain what response you are expecting, sir."

"I . . Awh . . ." Jaek waved his canteen, shrugged. "If you wanted to share . . . You know. Opening up a bit . . . " He took a sip. "Being one of the team."

"Vulcans do not share information about their personal lives."

"This makes it hard for anyone to get to know you." Jaek pointed at Spock as he said this, and didn't sound nearly as drunk.

"I do not think that knowledge changes my willingness to share," Spock said.

"Well." Jaek sat back, crossed his legs. Spock's eyes had adjusted and Jaek's form was filling in with shades of blue-gray. "Okay. I'll share. I don't know how to make my best friend quit this place. I talk it down so much, I want to leave myself. I'm starting to believe my own crap. And Ensign Mintimore, my esteemed annoyed partner from Chanel's class, isn't helping. Or IS helping. Too much."

"If I may, sir, I see only a loss to this institution if you depart. Although my opinion carries little weight, I realize."

Jaek, the hazy shadow, lowered his canteen to hang it between his knees. He was slouching, staring at Spock. "Not zero weight, Cadet." He shifted, slouched more. "You know. It occurs. Admiral Justin always says you think exactly like him. What do you suggest with him?"

"If you estimate you are going to fail. I suggest you renegotiate with the Vice Admiral as soon as possible."

"Dog dirt. That's the same as failure." He huffed out. "But I'm already going to flop. The more I talk Starfleet down, the happier Hortie seems."

"If I may. You are talking down this institution to someone who does not belong in it. That makes him and it a better match."

Jaek paused, jaw working. "Right." He took a swig. Breathed in and out a few times. "You're damn right." He sighed, fully exhaled. "Well, damn. I think I need to talk Hortie down instead, make him unhappy to be here with me. Dirty dog hell." He drank again, and again, then pounded his fist on his thigh and groaned. He sat back, spent.

Spock considered asking to be dismissed, but did not wish to add to the strain.

Jaek heaved to his feet, lost his balance in the low light and scuttled to the side until he could put his hand down on the top edge of a concrete planter. "Whoa. Had more than I thought." He shuffled to a bench closer to Spock, dropped the canteen with a thunk, and sat with his hands gripping his thighs. "Maybe I should sleep here. Sober up."

"Do you want me to fetch you a sobering pill?"

"No. I want to be drunk." He looked up, voice faint. "But thanks." He stared straight ahead for a time. "So easy to just lose it all. I didn't think about it like that. The rules are the rules, but always a bit soft around the edges. Then you've crossed a line and it's all just teetering . . ." He sat back, hard. "You have any noreg visitors in your room lately, Cadet?"

"No, sir."

"Got caught once. Gave up having company just because of that one time? You always give up that easily?"

Spock considered his reply. Considered Jaek's words. "My boyfriend is deployed now, sir."

"Boyfriend, eh? I didn't think Vulcans had those."

Spock fought a wave of uneasiness at contemplating explaining further.

"That was too much to share," Jaek stated for him. He sounded amused. "You know. Maybe I misread you at the start. Picked on the wrong plebe for the wrong reason. Maybe. Let's see. What else would I need to know?" He sounded pleased now, voice full of smile. A full transition in mood that made him sound more like Kirk than Spock imagined possible.

"What could the Louie dislike about you, anyway?" Jaek said. "Mintimore thinks I'm a spoiled poser with no useful future. But that couldn't be your issue."

"I do not wish to speak of it."

Jaek snorted faintly. "Fine. Drunk orders are hardly binding, anyway." Silence fell. "Thought maybe I could help."

"I believe, sir, that I am currently committed to learning my way through this on my own," Spock said. "Perhaps I will accept your offer of advice another time?"

Jaek laughed. "Right. That's good. Look, I'm going to just sit out here. Maybe sleep. Get lost, okay?"

"Yes, sir."

Spock stepped away. The foggy air hung like a blanket over the courtyard. He made it to his room without encountering anyone else who would question his late movements.

* * *

Spock rose up in the status light-punctuated darkness of his dorm room. He pulled his padd out from the vertical shelf where he stored it. Kirk's feed was still dark gray, in excess of 31 days out of date. Spock had not sent another message in that time. In the last message he had berated Kirk for forcing him to open up to him, but had spoken of his weaknesses anyway, had broken decorum to do it. It had not been logical to send an additional message until he'd received a reply to that one, lest his messages become one-way, like a diary that may never be read by another.

Enough time had passed, his estimate of his message being received at all was declining non-linearly. In defiance of this, perhaps, Spock pressed Kirk's line on the feed index, said, "Audio message."

The status bar spread out, showed him a waveform and measures of noise and recognition accuracy, language rule adherence, estimated message genre and tone. He swiped that panel away, and the screen went blank except for the power over frequency graph.

"James. I have resisted burdening you with another message while I await yours." His voice was calm, not quite Vulcan, but factual enough to not hurt his pride. "But the tone, if not the content, of my last message has become no longer relevant to my situation and since your query was, quote, what is going on with me, unquote, I must amend my reply."

The device's record status went to standby while Spock weighed his next words. He breathed in, held it. Became stone.

"I do not know if I am more concerned for you or for myself at the prospect that something may have befallen you. It is an interesting problem that I admit I have never previously tried to extract from the social context and rituals of death. I find myself drawn to the perhaps antisocial conclusion that the expired have no need for sympathy. And that grief is inherently self-serving, and therefore illogical. But even so I find I cannot abandon the notions of the ideal future I have been harboring. Perhaps illogically. Perhaps not. It should be logical to plan for the future, even emotionally. When one sets out towards a goal that pleases one, this is perhaps always a threat to logic.

"Day to day, I have a better perspective on small events given the underlying worry for you. This has been instructive. As well, I am now looking forward to the temple and a refocussing my energy on my inner control. My attention is too captive to my projects here at the Academy . . . "

Spock faded out to considered that he had given Kirk no warning as to his rule-breaking project with P'Losiwst, nor would he bother to burden Kirk with Carrom's reactions to learning Spock's background.

Spock backed up in the recording to eliminate the vocal hesitation. "I will finish up the term here, and be fully open to learning the mental disciplines that will assist me in situations like this in the future."

Spock paused again. The recording was a revelation of sorts. As he spoke it, the words became him. He was not merely trying on these ideas to assuage Kirk. This was the being he wanted to be. He wanted to be untouchable at will. The aching worry of the last month at the threat of losing the most pleasing aspect of his world had brought him to this place. He wondered who that other Spock had been, that younger one that found lessons in mental control so tedious and useless.

Spock began again, "You were correct that being apart would assist me in finding out who I am. I did not expect to learn so much along these aspects. But perhaps you always understood that and I was merely naive.

"James. With a romanticism unbound from logic, in that my words can have no impact on reality, I do hope you are unharmed and well. And in answer to your query. I am fine, aside from my ever-present concern for you. Or concern not for you, but actually for myself. Perhaps both. I anticipate a message from you with some emotion, whenever you have the ability to send it."

Spock closed out the message and released it to the system. It was oh six hundred two. He slipped out of his robes and into his uniform. He had to work out one more way of bypassing the dorm room door security. Jaek may be out of his personal sphere of revenge, but he was not out of P'losiwst's and he owed his loyalty to her first.

* * *

"The canyon is cut steepest here," Kirk said. "The rock will be denser."

Bark shuffled up beside him. His boots were so coated in silt they looked like stones. "Want me to try a low power scan?"

"No. We can't risk company. Just show me where we are on the map. We need to pick the best angle of the canyon for cover."

As they'd walked, Kirk had been idly thinking about who to send up top to signal. He had to decide that now, send that person off away from the group in case they attracted fire. He decided on one of his sharpshooters.

"Ying."

Ying was lithe except for her thighs which looked lengthened and muscle enhanced. She had the body of an entertainment world acrobat, and the customized armor to go with it.

"You're going up top." He reached out for the map in Bark's hands.

"I can go," Uirik said. She shed her helmet as she stepped up beside Ying.

Kirk thought she was still trying to find a way to live down losing Hungren. "I want you down here," Kirk said. He turned to Ying, but kept his Second in the circle to consult.

"We're going to hole up right here, at this bend." He point on the map. "Which gives us the best cover from blasts at the base and the gun." He scanned the terrain, verifying it was the best choice. "Yeah. And I want you well away, so you are going to have to book it."

Ying nodded, pushed her helmet back up off her ears, which made her resemble a statue of a hero.

"Hummer." Kirk turned to find Hummer waiting two steps away. They were all getting used to each other. Kirk resisted smiling. "Compose the shortest comm packet you can. Light encryption. Our loc, the target locs. That should be enough. I'm going to think highly enough of our fellows to assume they are alert and waiting for us. And also eager for a chance to blow things up."

He turned to Uirik. "Thoughts?"

She appeared stubborn, but shook her head. She really wanted to go up.

"All right. Let's go."

Ying stripped down her equipment belt with rapid, deft movements. He'd chosen a sharpshooter because she wouldn't fumble while exposed and wouldn't need extra time to get the transmission off. She looked to Kirk to make sure there was nothing more. Then jogged off, footfalls puffing dust.

Kirk turned to the group. "I'm estimating fifty minutes, but let's make our way to cover. We're about fifteen minutes away."

Kirk took Kilpea off Ranran's hands as the minutes ticked down. Hummer and Uirik were on either side of him, weapons at ready. Although if one of the small automated ships came at them, they were ordered to hold fire. But it made everyone feel better to be holding something lethal.

Minutes ticked away beyond the estimate. Kirk began to calculate when he'd send someone to follow. This musing was interrupted by a rumble that sent rock debris down the cliff face. He had to lay on his back to account for his charred armor, Kilpea, helmet locked in place, was curled at his side, helmet under Kirk's arm.

Kirk flicked his faceplate down. Rocks clattered on it. The rumble became lower pitched. It had to be the tunneling torpedo. He'd never felt one in operation, only seen a simulation.

The explosion shot thick dust across the top of the canyon, turning the world to a brown haze that settled around them. Then there was nothing. Uirik had slid down to the canyon bottom. She dug in her heels to push back to a reclined position, gun still resting on its butt. Everything was brown crusted.

From the angle of the explosion, Kirk assumed that was the base. Personally, he'd have taken out the gun first. Maybe he should have suggested that in the message. It seemed presumptuous to make such a suggestion to a remote command team with a full scan in front of them. But because he hadn't suggested it, the forcefield was likely still in place. Kirk sighed. His exhalation bathed his face off his helmet shield.

Uirik sat forward, stretched a shoulder. Others shifted and Uirik made a motion for them to stay in cover positions.

Time passed. Kirk tried not to think about anything other than a hot shower and a soft bed. Fortunately those two things had risen to levels of pornographic importance to his body and easily fully occupied his thoughts.

Another rumble, more violent, then another explosion. Kirk's helmet comm filled with chatter and telemetry in a burst. After a minute, brown dust was drifting on the wind high above them. Skuttles flashed by overhead, one after the other, after another and yet another pair in close formation.

"They call out the entire division?" Kirk said.

Distant phaser fire sounded. Return fire lit bands into the sky. Apparently they'd taken out the shield without taking out the gun. Uirik had raised her head to listen, then shook it, rested it back on the stone.

They waited. Kilpea fought Kirk's hold for a while, slipped out of his helmet. Hummer clambered over, took hold of the straps securing Kilpea's back armor plates and forced him into place against Kirk.

"We're going home, Kilpea. Just hang on," Kirk said.

A battle-scarred skuttle passed overtop, returned cutting a banked arc, then hovered overhead. Kirk sat up, pulling Kilpea with him. Getting to this point no longer felt anything like defeat.

* * *

Kirk spent three hours in a harsh video debriefing. He wondered who he could ask if that was excessive or standard for such a mission. He stepped into the corridor, finding it constricting to have a ship close around him again. Their team's skuttles had been too damaged in the firefight to make the trip back to base, so the USS Saltonstall was giving them a lift to a commercial base on Niomtom VII from where they'd have to wait for transport.

Kirk found a table in the wide corridor used as the mess area because the mess area was used for cargo. Even here it smelled more like hydraulic fluid and volatiles than food. The ship was a tub, battered equally on the inside as the outside. He'd showered in a cargo container outfitted for the purpose and sanitized his uniform, but there weren't any spare berths. Some of his crew were sleeping in the skuttles in the lower bay he found out when he went to see how repairs were going. They were sleeping through the noise and commotion.

His padd opened on the paperwork that was due immediately and that which could wait twenty four hours. There were two messages from Spock. Kirk fumbled in his pocket for an earpiece while he read the first one.

"What shall I say? That I feel instinctively, illogically uneasy at the Academy. That I must reduce my estimation of fitting in to a level that displeases me. That I miss physical contact with you to a point of experiencing the effects of a severe lack of food or water? Do you wish to hear these things for your own reasons that I cannot see the logic in? My interactions with you are a world apart from the others around me. I still do not understand what we have such that I can understand what I am missing in its absence. It is safer for me not to consider it at all, as I have been trained to do since I was very young. You wish me to overcome that for what end purpose when you are not even here to assist with the aftermath of having done so."

Time and space dilated there in the corridor, alongside the sounds of forks and knives and scuffing chair legs. The followup message from less than twenty hours ago was lengthy for Spock. Kirk's gut felt heavy. It wasn't safe to push like that if he wasn't 100% certain to be there afterward. Spock was absolutely right about that. Kirk was messing up here.

He listened to the second message. It worried him more. Spock had pulled inward to the point of losing self-awareness.

Kirk typed, "I've returned from the mission. In transit currently. I don't have any privacy right now. Might have in 3-4 hours."

"Commander."

Kirk looked up. It was Uirik, holding two steaming cups. Her head was haloed by a waving mass of shining red healthy hair.

She toe-tapped the chair opposite him. "That's the last open seat? May I?"

The tables had filled in for meal time and Kirk hadn't noticed. Funny how fast he lost acute awareness of his surroundings once life didn't depend on it.

Kirk nodded. He sent the message to Spock to relieve his friend's worry and pulled the report list back to the front. She flicked out the chair with her toe and sat down. Her eyes were a little too attentive to Kirk's face, but she would know better than him how to fill out the reports. He asked her to help and with a smile that held more than professionalism, she eagerly agreed.

They gave up the table and moved to the half-destroyed skuttle cushions that lined the bulkhead on the deck below. Around them crew slept and played games. Uirik relaxed into instructing Kirk on the ins and outs of reporting to this sector's command, became almost outgoing. Her leg didn't avoid touching Kirk's and given the close quarters and others listening, he felt constrained in how aggressively he could urge her away. He was pleased to see her open up, and decided to treat it as chummy, let it go for the time being.

* * *

Spock settled into his dorm room. Lacking his largest project, his day of courses and side studies had gone perfectly according to schedule. He pulled up old interactive tutorials on leadership on the room monitor, and made his way through them. This had become his weakest subject. The only difficult one for which he had no tutor.

Spock's padd chimed from where it sat on the bunk. He listened to the chime replay in his mind several times, comparing it over and over to the one he had been waiting anxiously for. Every comparison came up a match.

He moved himself to the padd rather than move the padd to himself, lowered himself to sit before it as if it had become a holy object. There was a short message from Kirk. He was fine. He was busy with his duties. If Lt. Carrom had not told Spock his concern for Kirk was justified, Spock would be suffering heavy embarrassment.

Spock rose up and turned off the monitor. He took out the white robe Kirk liked to wear, which Spock had left unwashed. He bundled the robe up and lay on his side to use it as a pillow. He breathed deeply through it, immersed himself fearlessly in the memory of Kirk there before him, sun in his hair from behind him. The scent filled in the memory, made it whole: Kirk glancing down, lips smiling at the corners to match his eyes. Eyes coming up again. Human. Emotions outward. Boldly sexual. The Kirk he'd avoided for weeks.

Spock put his mind into a posture of sleep, held himself there in the memory until real sleep overtook him.


	42. Wet

Chapter 42 - Wet

In Spock's sleeping mind, Kirk stepped close, right into Spock's bodily space. His hands slid over Spock's bare arms, mesmerizingly slow, up and down. Possessive. His cool human touch left behind wet streaks on Spock's skin. The rivulets taunted him, stimulated but not nearly enough.

He woke with his body reacting to the dream, reacting but not enough. Spock calmed his breathing and despite how much it brought Kirk to the present, pushed the spare robe carrying his scent aside. He better arranged himself on the bunk and lowered his mind into meditation. One tedious step at a time, he put his body into retreat. This achieved, he entered formal meditation and remained that way, awake and present in an empty room, body more bereft than relieved.

* * *

The commercial base on Niomtom VII was an oasis of thrown together structures in the middle of a flat sheet of scoured rock that stretched to the horizon. It predated the Colony War, but had grown twentyfold due to military traffic.

Lt. Uirik found Kirk as he checked into a pod room. She kept her voice low. "Wanna share a berth?"

"Sorry. No." Kirk's body emphatically answered the opposite to his words. He disregarded it.

Her eyes went distant. "Oh."

Kirk took the chipkey from the automat and hooked it on a tether on his jacket. "Look. Sorry if I led you on. I didn't mind the camaraderie. But it has to stay just camaraderie." That came out pretty well.

Her thin mouth stretched thinner, then pinched. "You like screwing with your people this way?" Her face reddened.

Kirk shook his head, stayed calm, forced lightheartedness. "We're sort of off the clock. But that's still out of line. Look. I clearly messed up not dissuading you immediately. I take full blame for that, okay?"

Her shoulders fell. She blinked rapidly. "Thanks. I just made an ass of myself."

"No. It was a fair offer given my behavior." His own need for physical contact had been part of the problem but he didn't want to say that. "I'm still new to switching out people so often. I said it was my fault. I don't know how to be comfortable with my people on a term basis. I'm used to having more time."

She tilted her head side to side. "Okay. Fine. I get it. I'll get my own berth."

He wanted to say he didn't expect she'd lack for company if she went looking for it, but worried that could backfire. He stepped aside so she could use the automat.

Kirk climbed up an exterior metal stairs to get to his pod. It was barely high enough to stand up in, but it was bot-cleaned and spotless since it had to make Starfleet specs or lose Federation ship traffic. Kirk pulled out his padd, pulled up the universe clock, dreading that his estimate may be off and Spock was in class. It was oh three hundred thirteen Earth HQ time. Kirk's body heated up starting from his low mid-section. He shed his jacket while requesting a connection to earth and Spock's transmitter ID.

It took more than five minutes for the connection to be arranged through channels, for the encryption he'd requested to negotiate through so many relays. Kirk glanced at the end-to-end status, considered stripping, but wasn't 100% certain Spock wouldn't be finishing up a project with others around.

Spock's image came on screen, mussed hair limned by the reading lamp to the side of him, face in stark shadow.

"James." He sounded breathless and distant.

"Hi." Kirk managed to keep his smile banked, his concern fronted. "It's really good to see you."

"You are unharmed?"

"Yes." Kirk shrugged one shoulder. "Bruised all over. No major damage."

"I am pleased." Spock was still breathless.

They both waited.

Kirk bit his lips. "I need something. Do you mind?"

Spock swallowed visibly, eyes darted to the side. "I need something as well."

Kirk gave a growl of anticipation. He put the padd on the monitor arm clip on the wall above the bunk and tugged off his shirt.

* * *

Spock held firm to the sides of his largest personal padd. The screen projected a partial third dimension and in that glowing image he saw Kirk slide his shirt off, revealing a far bulkier body than before, more triangular, and surfaced by myriad small muscles just below his skin. Spock became lost in that image, separated from himself there in his dorm.

Kirk tossed his shirt aside, reached toward the padd to adjust the angle of it, then rested back on a cushion. His chest muscles stood up, even against gravity. He put one hand over his head, which accentuated his transformation.

"Can I see more of you?" Kirk asked, quiet and sultry.

Spock reached down to the tie on his robes. Once a week he attended basic combat, and in between, intermittent drills that were no physical effort for a Vulcan. He had done nothing extra in the way of improving his physique. He would have to change that, regretted not even considering it sooner.

The sounds of appreciation from Kirk warmed Spock against all logic, melted the disciplines he'd been perfecting. If he had Kirk, he needed less control, oddly, illogically.

"I miss you," Kirk whispered.

Spock stood to put his robe on a hook. He propped his padd on a built in stand at the bedside, estimated the best angle for it and sat before it, one leg out, the other bent.

"Remember I said I might get more aggressive once things got crazy?" Kirk's eyes were glittering more than usual.

"I recall."

Kirk's tongue darted over his lips. "Good."

* * *

Author's Note: This is short because it got pretty heavily edited to fit the rating. You can find the full version on AO3 or KSarchive


	43. End of Term

Chapter 43 - End of Term

In the seat next to Spock's, P'Losiwst leaned farther over her devices. They were in a Leadership session, but she was finishing up a project on Propulsion. She would raise her head and listen, note something on one device with her bright blue nail, turn her attention back to the other device. Her regular small sighs were likely audible only to Spock. The entire two hours went by in this mode, with no pause in routine.

The intense planning for their revenge, the coordination of supplies, the secret orders with small fashion houses, the revisions to materials and planning, it had put P'Losiwst in a mode of competence that had carried over to her Academy work, as if her earlier difficulties had been simply an incapacity with engaging her existing skills.

The class was released. P'Losiwst stood up, collected her things. She looked up at Spock as if just remembering he was there.

"One week," she said with a small smile.

"You ready for exams?" someone asked them from the row behind.

P'Losiwst seemed to need to think about this. "Wish I could just get them over with."

"Oh, great tentacled goddesses," the person said. "I'm not THAT ready." Laughter, then the others shuffled on out of their row.

P'Losiwst looked at Spock again and something passed between them, a nonverbal understanding completely absent telepathy. This was how you made a group, Spock thought. A combination of both public shared understandings and secretive understandings, a kind of specialized interface between beings that one felt compelled to maintain. Akin to family, perhaps.

Her antenna were straight up, aware and open to everything around her. "You're ready," she said.

They started walking out of the auditorium. "I am."

"Five. It'll have to do."

"Five?"

"Two in one room, twice over."

"I did not realize you'd ascertained that assignment was possible."

"I've been comparing shaved heads to rosters. We can do another two-fer if we shuffle targets around."

"Efficient." They were in a crowd now, the noise higher. "Which are you dropping?"

"That little hanger on, Horton."

Spock stopped. "Do not drop him, drop the other."

"I'm not dropping the leader of the entire thing."

Students flowed around them. They remained there in the center of the corridor staring at each other.

"It's important," Spock said.

She frowned, looked away, antenna low. "Damn. Why?" She grumbled. "Okay. Four only. One two-fer plus leader and hanger on. Three rooms, four outfits. Okay?"

"Thank you."

She shook her head and started walking, following the tail of the crowd. "I don't understand you."

"Do you need to? I have logical reasons."

"I know you do. So it's okay in the end. I've got to get to a meeting, see you later."

* * *

Spock stood on the Academy parade grounds. Rows and columns of gray uniforms spread before him: tall, wide, small. All were level and in line with those beside and behind them. The sun glinted off shiny hair, shiny spines, and in the case of one Lccolle in the row ahead of Spock, it glinted off a brain interface dome for converting sound waves into neural stimulus.

Not only was there not rain or mist, there wasn't even a wisp of fog. The air was uncharacteristically pleasantly warm. He and P'losiwst were in the same formation block but three rows apart. Far to the right side of the parade grounds. By previous agreement they had arrived with other friends and arranged themselves with them, but in positions not too obviously distant from each other, either. They waited there in the preternatural calm with glass buildings rising around them like great sentinels.

Head still, body rigidly relaxed, Spock scanned the faces he could see at the edge of the observers. From where he stood he could only see the tallest, or those who stood on the temporarily dry fountain. Kirk would be there were he present; his mother would not.

The term scores had all been reported, Spock had moved to eleventh in the class rank but had been given a notation for his exemplary performance in an advanced course. It would have to do when he saw his father. His mother had said she might attend the assembly. She had warned Spock that she would have to ease Sarek into the idea before committing to attending. Odd, Spock thought, that his father could disapprove of this organization while simultaneously insisting Spock perform well within it.

A breeze swept through the ranks, snapping the UFP, Starfleet, and Academy flags. The Vice Admiral Justin, the Superintendent, stepped up to the podium and suppressed a smile. Spock judged him to be feeling far more pleased than he wanted to reveal.

Vice Admiral Justin congratulated them all, warned them this was just the beginning and to not slack off. A marathon, not a sprint, even if they felt at times that they were sprinting through a marathon. He went on with a relaxed air, described recent changes in Starfleet mission policy, a sharper division between defense and exploration, and how that would impact the upcoming terms and the focus of their learning.

A disturbance floated on the breeze. Spock moved his eyes only but could not see far enough to the left. There were snickers, shuffling feet. One person ahead of Spock turned her head all the way around, face curious. A senior cadet immediately castigated her and she fell back in line.

Vice Admiral Justin went on as before. The ranks fell still again.

"You asshole!" came a voice across the calm. Another scuffle. "No! Don't touch me. What'd you do this for? You've been giving me so much shit."

There came a cascade of organized movement as ranks shuffled out of the way. Cadet Horton stumbled by, gesturing behind him, uniform dissolving, split open at the armpits and down his spine so that the fabric flapped around his torso. He stopped and spun around, pointed several formations over to Spock's left.

"I'll get you for this! I knew you were up to something. Some friend!"

He tried to stride off the grounds, but was intercepted by two drill seniors, who stepped shoulder to shoulder into his path. They pointed at an open spot in a ragged edged formation beside the fountain.

"I'm outta here. You think I'm staying like this. With these assholes?"

A discussion ensued, too low for Spock to hear with the wind at his back. Horton gave up trying to pass, stood hulking at the end of a row. The Superintendent went on as before, but Spock no longer detected a smile.

* * *

P'losiwst came to Spock's dorm room an hour after the end of term assembly. She asked to come in, pressed hands together before her, elbows out, leaned back against the door.

She spoke as if to a diary. "Hanger On almost made up for the others. They stayed in rank, at attention, so they didn't get into trouble. Also, apparently not as sweaty, so not as obvious. Rain would have been much much better." Her antenna dipped to the sides.

She noticed Spock packing up his things. "Damn, you really are going."

Spock bowed a nod.

She put her hands behind her lower back and pressed them backwards, put a foot up on the pulled out low table. "You don't seem sad about it anymore."

"I am mentally prepared to depart."

"Well. I'll see you. Write, okay. If you're allowed. I'll let you know how things go here. I'll have to stay out of trouble after this. I don't trust anyone but you to keep their mouth shut better than I can keep my mouth shut."

Spock stood tall, put on a lecturing tone. "You are required, during your time here, to learn how to build workable teams, Cadet."

P'losiwst gave a smile full of pointed teeth. "Well . . ." He rocked her raised foot. "If you were anyone else, I'd offer you a going away romp, but I know you'll turn it down, so just know I'd be willing to offer, okay? I like you that much."

Spock adjusted to the idea that in this, even with very little data to work from, Kirk was correct. "I believe the humans say that 'it is the thought that counts'."

"Yeah, that's definitely not true for sex, but best that can be done here."

Spock estimated that something more should be shared. "I am not adept at this, so I do not have the words to match this situation, but I now suspect neither do you. That is why you have leapt directly to the domain of intimacy as a way of expressing yourself, albeit with an assumption of impossibility."

She fell still, staring at him. "You bastard. You've not let on much."

"I do not understand."

She pushed away from the wall. "You act like you don't understand anything around you."

"I don't. In general. But I can recognize in others the same limitations as I already recognize in myself."

She sighed, in a way that made it clear it was something she'd adopted from humans. "It's not going to be the same. With you gone. It's going to suck asteroids, actually." She gestured at his open delivery boxes and folded clothes. Her antenna drooped forward. "I'll let you get on with your packing. Write me."

Spock nodded. "I will."

Spock was just completing the packing of a second set of delivery containers when the door chimed. He'd already sent the larger cases off on a sled to be delivered to the embassy. As he packed the last of his robes, he marveled that despite having a full list of his dorm room possessions in his eidetic memory, their total volume still occupied more space than he'd estimated.

Spock called for the door to open and a tired Lt. Grange put his foot in the way of it closing and leaned against the frame of it. Spock put down the spare pillow he was about to roll tight for packing. Over the course of the term his mother had given him four. He'd accepted each of them for what they figuratively were, not what they physically were.

"Sir," Spock said in greeting.

"Super ordered me to fetch you."

Spock nodded. He was still wearing his dress uniform, having decided to arrive at the embassy with it on that evening.

Grange remained silent on their walk. He usually put on a hardened attitude over a soft core. This attitude wasn't that one. This one felt relentless all the way down.

He abandoned Spock at the door to the administrative head office, gestured stiffly that Spock should go inside.

Vice Admiral Justin sat at his desk wearing the same expression as Grange, an almost gothic grimness that made the lines of his face deeper. He powered down his device and pushed it aside, sat back in his chair, fingers still holding the stylus. He tossed that down, returned to considering Spock.

"I'd usually work out what I'm going to say before calling someone in, but you are departing, so I don't have a chance to."

"Sir?"

Justin pushed his chair back with a foot against the desk, leaned back farther. "I'm dismayed, Cadet. To say the least."

Spock studied the front of the broad desk. "I do not know the proper response, Admiral."

"Because there isn't one." He exhaled. "You've pushed the limits, not just of this institution, mind you. But mine." He paused. "That's worse. By the way."

Spock's hands at his sides felt awkward after standing at attention so long earlier in the day. He forced them to remain still. "I apologize, sir. May I request clarification of the topic under discussion?"

"The topic is your modification of your fellow student's dress uniforms so as to cause their failure during a large public assembly of this institution."

Spock weighed his words. Strictly speaking, this was untrue. But outright denial seemed too obvious. He considered what Kirk would do in his place. "Do you have evidence implicating me, sir?"

"Working on that now."

Spock considered that, made himself appear at ease. "I see."

As expected, doing the unexpected seemed to have unseated Justin's tactic of anger. He appeared curious now. He rubbed his chin.

The door swished open and Grange returned. He placed a series of square cuttings of uniform material in a row on the desk, set a tumbler full of water down as well. "The uniforms were replaced with near perfect duplicates."

He dropped one of the cuttings into the water. It softened into a haze that immediately began to settle. Grange swished the glass and set it down again. The swatch had vanished but the water appeared vaguely green and thickened. "It's some kind of algae derivative. It's not in any databanks in this exact form, as a thread that would withstand being woven."

Justin picked up a square. Since it came from the collar it was composed of three different kinds of material. He held it up and fingered it. "Amazingly convincing." He angled it into the light. "Maybe just a tad too shiny."

He dipped the corner into the glass, pulled it up trailing strings of clear green goo. He dropped it on his desk where it curled and retracted into itself. He put his hands on his hips.

"That's a lot of energy expended, Cadet."

"I would agree, sir," Spock said. "As to your assumption that I am responsible . . ." Spock hesitated. "Permission to speak freely, Admiral."

"You lost that right, Cadet."

Spock nodded more times than was necessary. "I see, sir." He fell still, waiting with almost bored detachment.

Lt. Grange picked up a swatch and fingered it. He explained some minor points about the fabric based on a scan done in one of the Academy labs. Then silence fell.

Justin patted his chair back twice. "Okay, Cadet. Talk to me, but manage to do it without needing to break rank."

Spock considered his words for a time. "I am concerned, sir."

"Are you now?" This sounded patronizing. Spock ignored the tone.

"You seem, sir, to have dismissed hundreds of my fellow cadets as capable of this. Are they not the product of a highly selective process?"

Justin's fingers ceased drumming on the back of his chair. He stared at Spock. "Go fetch our waiting cadet, Lieutenant."

Jaek was led in. He wore a day duty uniform, looked comfortable in it. He stepped up beside Spock, two paces away and assumed the same pose, not quiet attention, not quite parade rest.

"Your dress uniform has gone missing, Senior Cadet?" Justin asked. "Do we have theft on top of vandalism?"

"No, sir. It was in the back of my closet. I didn't see this morning that I had two." He glanced sideways at Spock, but not with any rancor.

Justin held up a swatch. "Cadet Spock, did you make these mimic uniforms?"

"No, sir."

Justin dropped the swatch. "I see."

Beside Spock, Jaek inhaled a long way and exhaled slowly.

"So. I am, as you say, overlooking someone else's abilities here." Justin's fingers resumed tapping on his chair back. "So, Mr. Jaek, your friend Mr. Horton has gotten himself into a bit of trouble. He attempted to entice you into a fist fight after the assembly broke up, I was told."

Jaek tipped his head to the side.

Justin said, "You realize there is no rational reason to protect him at this juncture?"

Jaek said, "He thought I made the uniforms and set him up to be embarrassed, so he was angry. He sweats a lot more than me . . . So his uniform fell apart a lot worse. He thought that proved I'd done it since he hears about his sweating from me all the time. I tried to calm him down, tried to get him to direct his upset on another channel than violence."

"Lt. Grange tells me you did as well as one could under the circumstances."

"Security moved in faster than necessary, Admiral. I and my fellow cadets had a handle on him."

"We aren't going to leave such to the mentors when the public has a view. We already have the bad PR of his initial ranting."

"Yes, sir." Jaek bowed his head and remained standing that way.

"How many people have free access to your quarters, Mr. Jaek?" Justin asked.

Jaek shrugged. "Six or seven. We get together a lot in there. My roommate is a mentor so we have a suite."

"Any idea who would have left you a bogus uniform?"

"I haven't a good guess, sir. I'd like to think I'd have noticed someone plotting something like this. This is more work for the payout than my friends would bother with."

Justin said, "I couldn't help but notice that the three impacted were all involved in the prank on Cadet Spock, here."

Spock said nothing about the count discrepancy. Someone had made it off the parade grounds unnoticed.

Justin sighed. "But they also happen to be the class leaders, so that doesn't tell us very much. And I want to believe Mr. Spock's denial."

"If I might, Admiral," Spock said. "I would not know where to begin creating such a garment. And it would have taken a great deal of time I did not possess to learn enough to succeed at it."

"I would have been most sadly disappointed that you considered it a good use of your time, Cadet," Justin said. "You're dismissed, Spock. We hope to see you in a year. Don't forget to return and please stay out of trouble in the next handful of hours. Cadet Jaek, stay. I need to talk to you additionally."

Spock departed the administrative offices. He slowed his pace to better take in the Academy, to better make a memory he could explore later if need be.

* * *

Spock caught a branching-stemmed clematis as it pulled free along with the wilting anthurium his mother had just tugged from the vase. He took up the scissors and clipped the stem on an acute diagonal and gently reworked it back into the mass of flora so that it could touch water. Then the flowers around it needed rearranging to be symmetric again. He pulled those that were straight stemmed and put them back in at better angles.

Amanda paused to watch. Her hand hovered over the shiny wrapper of flowers she was drawing from to refresh the old bouquet. She wore a faint smile that slipped past her control.

Sarek entered, hands clasped together inside his heavy sleeves, robes sweeping the stone floor. Spock dropped his hands to his sides to indicate he had turned his full attention to him.

"My calendar is quite full tomorrow at the time of your departure, Spock," Sarek said.

Spock came around the table and stood the required polite distance before his father. He felt the awkward shape of his uniform acutely at that moment.

"I have informed T'Pau, Surin, and others in the family of your imminent installation at South Kipraro High Temple." He paused, slowed his speech more. "You bring this family honor, Spock. Everyone is quite pleased with your achieving such an exclusive placement."

Spock bowed.

Sarek spoke again. "The house in Shikahr will be kept minimally staffed. We will be back and forth to Vulcan in the next months. Unfortunately, since communication into the temple is made difficult, it will not be possible to keep you abreast of our comings and goings. Nevertheless, you can arrive home without warning and without inconvenience to the household."

Spock nodded. "Thank you, father."

Sarek looked to Amanda. As if by pre-arrangement, she said, "Your absence will be noticed, Spock."

Warmth bubbled inside Spock's midsection where his control did not seem to reach. He did not know the appropriate response, so he bowed his head and remained silent.

His father adjusted his clasped hands as if he was composing a difficult speech. His robes gave off a muffled sighing of fabric. Spock looked up.

"For once I am pleased to see you in that uniform," Sarek said. "My communications with our august clan members reminded me that one does not enter such a temple with the intent to return from it."

Spock had no idea his father had such concerns. "I have no intention of remaining. Father. I rate the likelihood close to zero."

Sarek nodded graciously.

Amanda said, "I will see Spock off tomorrow. James requested a going away picture. He complains to me that Spock does not send enough pictures."

Spock felt a blush flowing over his cheeks. They had comm linked three times while Kirk was on land base. Spock had control of his coloring seconds later, managed to speak with proper high disregard. "How many does one need?"

Amanda smiled. "Many, Spock. Many."

* * *

"Well, I guess that is that." Overlander stood with her arms crossed, broad shoulders pushed back.

Zienn's few possessions were in a battered Starfleet kit duffle beside the door.

"It is strange, the workings of random chance. I do not know that logic is fully equipped to account for it."

Overlander's face shifted, grew wry. "That you're way of saying something?"

"You construe too much. I am merely observing."

She looked down at the floor. "I guess I'm going to be an exec officer after all. No reason to stay posted here."

"You wished to leave things to chance. Of that I am certain."

She frowned, shifted her feet with a scuffing noise. "Yeah. Doc offered something more certain. I didn't bring it up with you." She tilted her head. "As I'm sure you are well aware. You know. I don't think I've learned a single thing about communicating in a relationship from this experience."

"Indeed? I have learned a great deal. I grossly underestimated how complicated intelligent beings can be."

The door chimed.

"Speaking of complicated beings," Overlander said.

She signaled the door. Spock stood in the doorway wearing heavy formal robes.

"I do not wish to interrupt," Spock said. "We are not on schedule. If you wish me to wait elsewhere-"

"I'm on a schedule," Overlander said. "The schedule of no long goodbyes." She held out an arm toward Spock in invitation. "James would expect me to give you a last hug. You know."

Spock had carefully composed himself and his composure held as he was gripped with mechanical fierceness, patted, and released.

"There. Now I can report to your boyfriend that I sent you on your way properly. Go on with you. And good luck."

Spock took up the duffle beside the door and led the way to the lift running up the hollow core of the building.

As they rode upward, Zienn said, "I am not used to having choices, so it is fortunate you are retracting mine from me."

Spock looked over. "You are not ready to depart?"

"I do not know what I am," Zienn said. "So it is perhaps past time I returned to something I know well."

Spock turned to him with his entire body. Emotions made his throat thick. "I cannot express how grateful I am for your consideration."

"I promised to suffer whatever service you require," Zienn said. "And I will hold to that. Do not suffer gratitude, as well, for me in return."

"But if you are having doubts about departing . . ."

The lift opened onto the roof deck landing area. The sky was busy with traffic shifting in and out of the low clouds. They remained under the shelter of the lift column. Spock's family's ship sat on the closest pad, active engine lights flashing, indicating it could lift off any time.

Zienn said, "I need to put my situation back into the previous perspective to judge it on a scale that has meaning for me. I must return to the perspective of no actual suffering, only striving against myself under the overdone honor of my people."

Spock blurted into the ensuing silence, "My father sees honor in this for me and our clan."

"He is confused."

"As I suspected." Spock ceased fighting himself on so many fronts and felt his control fall easily into place. He exhaled into the shifting breeze carrying the heat rising off the paved roof.

Zienn was studying Spock's face. "I am pleased that you have learned to relax into yourself in the service of higher discipline. For a time, I doubted I was going to convince you to trust you could."

"I was taught to be strong in all ways."

"That was unwise of someone. Strength is usually more a use of finesse than a brute application of force." He lowered his hands to hang before him, loosely interlaced. "I have prepared you for the temple the best I can in such a place as this. You have been frustrated often, but have learned a great deal in a short time under poor circumstances. You have already succeeded whether the temple allows you residence long-term or not. Do you understand?"

"You wish me to avoid worrying that I will fail."

"Correct."

"Then I will not worry."

"You have only me to gain approval from anyway." Zienn's brow quirked.

"If only that were true."

"For the next months, it is. Remember that."


	44. Red Mountain

Red Mountain

Epsilon Eridani's red light filled the looming face of the mountain. The high peak rose out of a curved bowl of lower mountains glowing in hazy graduated shades of umber, puce, and vermillion. The high air stood clear, and the crags at the very peak showed crisp and stark where the temple walls organically emerged and reached higher still.

Spock and Zienn stood in the shadow of Spock's family ship, beneath the still humming engines. Zienn's threadbare robes were now the practical ones. Spock's fine set were already powdered by the fine, hovering dust.

Zienn nodded at a structure half a klick away across the bowl of the valley. "We will ride up with the supplies. Only residents may do so."

The temple supplies were lifted up the mountain by cable in a suspended car. The cable was anchored in a stone hut sitting alone on the stark valley floor. A motor spun the loop of cable that reached out of the haze of the valley and far up the cliff face. Spock had to crane his neck to see where the wires anchored, at a tiny dark opening in the sheer wall.

They waited with the light breeze relieving the intense heat while the pair of cars, mere smudges on the lines, passed each other and one gradually sank toward then and became better defined as an elongated egg shaped pod.

Zienn, who had spent the warp voyage with his eyes closed, who refused to accept any explanation for the function of a transporter, arrested the swinging of the wind-stained car with his rail-thin corded leg and swung himself aboard as if settling into his natural element.

Spock was clearly meant to follow. He stepped rapidly alongside the car, tried to step into the center of the car's floor to avoid the violent swing his higher mass would set off, but he lost his footing and had to be set forcibly into place on a crate of water jugs by his mentor. Zienn held firm for many seconds as if to verify Spock would not move unexpectedly again. Spock relaxed and settled back against a stack of crates as if to prove Zienn's concern unwarranted.

The car lifted away from the high plain on a the path appropriate to a launching aircraft. Zienn turned to the dusty window, slid it open to better see out. They rose into glaring sunlight. The wind whistled through the window, tilted the car and held it at that crooked angle.

The top arrived without warning, just darkness and the humming run of the cable through a narrow cavity. Spock copied Zienn's movements precisely to exit in time in a crowded storage area. He followed out of this, up long staircases that were sometimes carved inside, straight through the rock, sometimes outside on a natural cleft of the rock face.

The air continued to thin. At the top, Eridani glazed every surface with fire. Spock's inner eyelid snapped closed. He followed Zienn's thin silhouette across a naturally formed courtyard and through an archway into darkness. His inner eyelid did not retract once inside. He put out a hand and dragged it along the rock wall as he went, listening to where he should follow. He heard Zienn's feet pad up four steps and estimated where they might be, only fumbling once before his feet encountered the same steps.

"This is the common area for visitors," Zienn said. "Individual rooms are that way along the face to catch the wind for cooling and to put more mountain between this these rooms and the central temple where it must remain mind-quiet."

Spock could see none of this. He stared straight ahead, waiting for his eyelids to behave as they should.

"Rarely do we have more than four or five visitors. And these rooms are considered too cool for their comfort so they go unused. Given your excessive time on earth, I hope you will find them more comfortable than most visitors do."

Spock felt a touch on his upper arm.

"You are trying too hard already," Zienn said. He sounded concerned.

Spock rubbed his eyes even though it would not have any impact on his vision. "I am not accustomed to the unfiltered light."

"You will be."

There was a pause. Spock waited behind the darkness of his vision.

"Spock," Zienn sounded displeased. "I expect you to inform me if you are having difficulty."

"I understand," Spock said. "This was not a difficulty."

Zienn took his arm and led him a few paces. "Come. Step down. I will show you to the room I think best suits."

Spock felt air on his face carrying the scent of stone rich in iron and copper warmed until one could taste it.

"Sit."

Spock found a stone surface behind him. He lowered himself onto it.

"I will leave you to recover and adapt. Food and refreshments are brought to the common area twice a day by the porters who handle the supplies. They are instructed to not speak to the priests. They will not realize you are not one. Just so you understand."

Spock rubbed his eyes again, still to no effect. Fingers touched his cheek and he reacted inward only, as discipline dictated. But it likely wasn't a test.

"I will return. Rest here in this section until I do." There was a shuffling sound of departure.

"May I ask how long?" Spock said before the footsteps fully receded.

"You need to cease thinking in such terms. But this one time I will respond in the way you requested. Four or five days."

"Thank you, Honored Teacher." Spock couldn't keep the emotion from reaching out of the darkness of his vision toward the presence he was now relying on.

"Rest and adapt to this place. I ask this and only this of you right now."

They'd rehearsed this. Spock was to clear his thoughts and drain himself of his Academy concerns, put his mind fully into a state of relaxed control. "Yes, Teacher."

Spock was alone. His vision slowly returned, as three spires of light like a stalled beam-in cycle, then as squared off narrow windows overlooking the valley they'd come up in the cable car.

Spock approached the windows. The Kipran'nu Mountain range forked, tumbled and spread itself away from the temple in a sinuous spine, bolstered by lower mountains and accented by sharp spires and hanging valleys cradling smudges of blue and green growth.

Spock drank in the view for a time he strictly banned himself from measuring. He watched the shifting light as the sun moved higher in the sky. Spotlights appeared on the wall of his room as slivers, then shining coins, sunlight projected through holes in the ceiling and directed by glass lenses. The room began to warm. He estimated that the roof would receive three hours of full light, and therefore only acquire limited heat which would have to suffice for the remaining hours of the day. There was no way to close or even shield the windows so the wind direction would determine the temperature outside the period of solar load.

The view continued to shift, growing less starkly shadowed. Spock could no longer force himself to be sated by it when he had not explored his immediate surroundings. He went quietly up to the common room. The area was empty. He found water and juice, fruits and seeds. He stacked food in one of the small baskets under the table, filled one of several jugs and carried these back down to his room. He went out again, exploring the length of the visitor area, creeping about on soundless footsteps. At the end of the corridor he found a storage area with sleeping pads and, since they were alarmingly thin, procured two for himself.

He returned to his room and the magnificent view. The mountains beyond had flattened with the sun directly behind him. He nibbled on seeds and steered his mind away from the concerns that had defined him for months: his courses, Kirk, his father. He closed his eyes, felt the dulled pulsing of the temple's grouped minds on the far side of the mountain peak. His inner mind was no better than his inner eyelid; it too needed to be exercised to best serve him.

He put his things aside and posed himself for meditation, fell deeply into it with unexpected abandon.

\- 8888 -

"Where's your friend?"

P'Losiwst looked up from her lunch tray at Cadet Jaek. He was alone, which was unusual. He stood with his arms pinned to his sides, his senior uniform fitting perfectly. It was unusually quiet in the break area and there was no one looking their way.

"He's on Vulcan, sir."

Jaek's brows lowered. "Classes started today."

"I'm sure he's aware."

Jaek shifted his left shoulder. "When's he coming back?"

P'Losiwst kept her antenna fixed to avoid giving away that she was excited to be engaged in trickery. "It's not been determined, sir, when he'll return. Not this term for certain. Maybe not the next. He got permission to take at least a year off."

"A year off?" Jaek's eyes grew distant, looked away. He looked back, "You can message him? Tell him he's supposed to come back?"

"No."

"No, Plebe?"

She shrugged. "He's at some ancient mountaintop monastery place that doesn't have any technology. At all. Not even lights let alone a comm unit."

"There really are places like that in the Federation core?"

"Yes. It's been around for like six thousand years and hasn't changed at all in that time."

Jaek looked like he wanted to disbelieve her. He breathed in and out. "What's he doing there?"

"He's learning to be a perfect Vulcan so he can better withstand humans. He's being mentored under some important Vulcan priest guy."

Jaek thought this over. "He's coming back, right?"

P'Losiwst fixed her antenna with all her might. "I don't know, sir. Maybe we'll know in a year."

Jaek pursed his lips. "Kay." He stalked off.

At the entrance to the break area a pair of third years were criticizing the hairstyles of students trying to get to the tables. They were doling out sit ups and wall stands to those students whose hairstyles were deemed too fussy.

"Poppy, Itzy, knock it off. Do something useful for a change," Jaek said as he passed, bumping both their shoulders and knocking them aside.

\- 8888 -

Kirk reviewed his last message to Spock. He wondered who'd written it.

He was back on a mission, was just then sitting in the co-pilot's seat of a Skuttle while the pilot handled routine comm with another team. They'd been put on hold, were supposed to sit tight. Apparently this was how most missions went.

Kirk rubbed his right eye. The message he'd sent rang with confidence that seemed ridiculously misplaced. How in the galaxy had he managed to treat a potential silence of an entire year so casually? He'd been hell-bent on reassuring Spock, on assuring that he himself would not be a distraction to Spock. Nothing else had mattered. He knew that, even now. Could remember explicitly focusing on that. But even so. He must have been mad sending something so professional, so strong. He hadn't even closed with "I'll miss you" let alone what he'd close with now: "I'll miss you painfully and hungrily, my dear Vulcan love."

Kirk closed out his messages and put his padd into its belt pouch, turned his attention to the displays on the console. Trouble was, nothing on the sensors had changed. Nothing would change until it all went to hell.

Kirk rubbed his hair back, scratched viciously at his scalp.

"Sir?"

Kirk dropped his arms, sat heavily back in the seat. "I could use some action. Better yet, a fight."

The Ensign's voice significantly rose in anticipation, voice laden with a grin. "Yes, sir."

\- 8888 -

"Mr. Jaek, please make it quick. New term fills my calendar enough that me and a platoon of clones couldn't do it all."

Jaek stepped inside the Superintendent's office. The art had been rearranged, the desk shifted to one side. It upset the balance of the room. "I wanted to talk to you if I may, sir, about Cadet Spock."

Justin put down his sheaf of electronic paper. "Interesting. I would have assumed you wanted to talk about Mr. Horton." Justin gave Jaek his full attention. "Go on."

Jaek's face heated. He tried to drop his gaze, pulled it up square instead. He put his hands behind his back. "I didn't intend to chase Cadet Spock out of the program, sir."

Justin stared for a time without a twitch in his expression. "No?"

"No, sir. I . . . I wouldn't want Starfleet to lose him. I just thought he needed to, you know, get clearer with what was expected of him."

Justin spoke slowly. "As a commander, you need to be adaptive to your people. There's more than one way to accomplish something. The method that worked the previous time isn't necessarily the best solution for the next situation. It's important to remember that and not just keep using a hammer when you have an entire toolbox. And if you don't have a toolbox, someone's failed along the way."

Jaek considered that, guessed at how that might be relevant. "Yes sir. I would obviously do things differently if I had a chance. Ribbing and the risk of getting pranked is how I was taught what was at stake . . . It made me realize how much I need people on my side . . . That I can't disregard anyone." Jaek wanted to gesture with his arms, gripped his hands together firmly to avoid it. "I . . . talked to Cadet Spock late last term. Personably. Had a good conversation. I didn't see this coming. If I'd seen this coming, I'd have talked to him more for certain, sir."

Justin was quiet too long. "You regret Cadet Spock's departure, you are saying."

"Yes sir. I didn't mean for that to happen." He felt the pain of regret more acutely, knew it was coming through in his expression.

"I see. Acknowledged, Cadet." Justin took a seat behind his desk, pulled his documents over in front of himself.

"That's it? Admiral, sir?"

"I believe so."

"I'd like to write Cadet Spock a letter. But his friend said that wasn't possible. I thought perhaps you would be better informed on that point."

"Cadet. You may write Cadet Spock a letter. You can give it to me. I'll see what can be done about delivering it."

"Is he really at some remote temple with no technology? Or was Cadet Jlowisam lying to me. It occurs to me now, she might have been. Her antenna were off."

"He really is. It is called South Kipraro High Temple if you want to look it up. Read the history. Might be a good idea before you draft that letter. And you are dismissed."

"All right, sir. Thank you. I will do that."

"You're going to do fine, Cadet," Justin said to Jaek's departing back.

Jaek turned on his toes and settled into parade rest. He was feeling down and this comment made his lungs fill with unexpectedly fresh air. "Thank you, Admiral."

-8888-

Author's Note: Oddest thing's been messing with my productivity. I've been hating my writing lately. I reread it and it's actively painful and I rework over and over again. I've heard other writers say this and always thought it seems over dramatic or something, but here I am. I'm going to chock it up to whatever I've been reading, and I've been reading a lot of fairly highbrow stuff that I've put off reading for a lifetime. I hadn't considered the hazard of that before. It's shut down both my fanfiction writing and my original stuff, except for one short story idea I had to jot down, and managed to easily, mostly because it was a draft and I wasn't trying to make it anything above cringeworthy anyway.

I'm really glad I have this to push out to the world because I think it may have broken the log-jam in my head. We'll see. I'm going to post… without rereading. Yet. Again. LOL.


End file.
